Literary research

Nathan Furr finds small-army reasons for doing literary research. He summarizes these to be Experiencing the Other, learning compassion and service, gaining insight into ourselves, finding mod ship canal of speculateing, understanding and writing much clearly, and reveal the joy of discovery and creation (Furr, 3). To these he also adds essenti each(prenominal)y, the power of literary research to combat mis teaching. Generally, Furrs reasons are similar to my own however, I would make some changes to his conclusions.Two of Furrs take aims with which I unequivocally agree are that literary research allows atomic number 53 the ability of understanding and writing more clearly as well as a major reason for literary research being uncovering the joy of discovery and creation.These two reasons are of key importance because the detective aspect of literary research is a large part of what makes it so charitable to me. By extension, a pile of research divine services little value ev en if the research was conducted merely reveal of my own rarity because the compiling, organizing, and writing are all essential comp whizznts in answering the initial question. Without the writing forcing me to synthesize the facts I have discovered and draw coherent conclusions, the research itself as well as whatever conclusions I drew are more easily forgotten.The first reason Furr lists is experiencing the Other. While this does seem like a semiprecious reason, I would more likely phrase it as expanding bingles world view. At least for me, this broader category makes more sense. In the example he gives intimately the man from Poland, I think not only do we get to see the world from his perspective, besides through oral histories like this we gain a valuable insight into the time and place described. Thinking of it as experiencing the Other feels un nurseable to me in that it seems to separate the police detective from the research subject, and as I think Furr would agree , that surmount is exactly what literary research often seeks to minimize.While Furrs claim that literary research can aid in finding new federal agencys of thinking, I had difficulty with his example of research for buying a computer. At the end of this paragraph, he summarizes the process of research saying, We start with a problem or question, being researching, follow leads, assemble materials, and then create a product (Furr, 2). I agree that this is how research is conducted however, is that really finding a new way of thinking? It seems more like gathering information to form a conclusion and it should thus be labeled something more like providing information.I think this is especially true because, aside from his example, literary research does not necessarily facilitate the discovery of new ways of thinking. I think it is possible that 1 could research a topic and emerge with a legitimate conclusion or product only if without any new way of thinking about the problem be yond having found a satisfactory conclusion. Ideally, this would not be the case. Anyone conducting literary research would discover a new way of seeing a problem, but I think it is too broad a generalization to assume that this is always true. At any rate, I think if this is truly what Mr. Furr is asserting, it would accommodate better, for me, into the expanding ones world view category.Furr also sees gaining insight into ourselves as another reason for doing literary research. In describing this reason, Furr states that through literary research many another(prenominal) quite a little seek to essentially unlocking what we have always known and affirming it to ourselves. (Furr, 2).This seems to be Furrs most direct reference to researcher bias. I found his lose of a full discussion of this topic to be a major shortcoming of his article. True, research in it most basic form involves uncovering information, but the worldin literary and historical senses as well as many othersis a very complex web of thoughts, experiences, and interpretations.I would argue that on that point is no one Truth, and the belief in such a thing is nave. The most obvious case would be the Bible. Many different people seek to use the Bible to support very different claims. Often passages sighted are contradictory and can easily support conflicting contentions. The literary researcher does uncover information, but what is uncovered is only part of the story. Which part is uncovered is largely reliant upon the sources one utilizes.The selection of source is also a product of bias. For example, I would not use a Hindi newspaper, nor would I count on to an un-translated Mayan text. These two can be seen as extremes because of linguistic inaccessibility, but in doing research we generally gravitate toward sources with which we are comfortable whether books, popular media, scholarly articles, newspapers, oral histories, or any number of available source material.Beyond comfort with sou rces, I think Furrs assertion falters in that it does not explicitly take into account that researchers find what they seek. This affirming of ones own beliefs is key to researcher bias because, for example, people who want to claim that the Holocaust never happened, will do so regardless of any information others try to point out to them. Further, they will conduct their own research and doubtless find material that supports their conclusion, however false that conclusion may seem to be.Furr discusses the power of misinformation, but fails to view the fact that many people do research and come up with unpopular conclusions that fly in the face of nearly all other findings. precisely because we know it happened, when looking at the issue of the Holocaust we can claim that people denying it existence are spreading misinformation, but with more complex issues, and issues for which at that place are not survivors, it becomes clear that one persons misinformation can be anothers high ly researched cutting-edge discovery. It all depends on where you look and what you are hoping to find.Another of Furrs reasons for literary researchlearning compassion and serviceseems a bit optimistic to me. Of course, we would like to believe that knowledge conquers darkness, but again compassion is a highly subjective issue. Many people research literature, science, and history either explicitly in search of or resulting in reasons to assert their own superiority and use to oppress others. One example would be people who researched, and still do research, on the biological inferiority of minorities to continue and legitimize racist practices. Finding compassion in such research is difficult if not impossible.In terms of service though, I enjoyed Furrs claim that research is an ethical action. While again this statement seems a bit simplistic, I think the argument he quotes from Altick and Fenstermaker that literary research can serve to extend the traditional boundaries of scho larly and critical interest is a valid one (Furr, 2). While I do find Furrs claims to be optimistic, I agree that in the best-case scenarios they are both true and of extreme value, but it is important to highlight some possibilities for which his arguments do not seem to account.I do agree that there are many important reasons both personal and social to undertake literary research. Perhaps the strongest impetus for doing research is curiosity, is that so? Ill look it up. On an individual level when someone makes a seemingly unrealistic claim, literary research is an important tool in satisfying curiosity and quelling argument.Investigating misinformation is also very valuable on a larger social level. This calls to mind the chopine on International Policy Attitudes 2003 pick up that surveyed Americans to determine their rate of misperception about three issues surrounding the Gulf War and found that 80% Fox News viewers held at least one of the misperceptions (PIPA, 13). To me, this illustrates the importance of literary research more than any other example.If one accepts information from one source uncritically, then they are completely at the favor of that sources biases. While I believe it is true that a researcher is limited by their own biases, at least those biases are their own. moving picture to sources with different biases is important in opening up new avenues of inquiry, but undertaking literary research is vital to locating other biases and interpreting information provided by those sources. Literary research then is the key to knowing not only ones own mind, but understanding the minds of others, and thus one of the most valuable tools anyone can employ in developing intellectually, personally, and socially.Works CitedFurr, Nathan. Literary Research The Importance of Process and Product.Kull, Steven. Misperceptions, the Media, and the War in Iraq. Pipa.com. 2 Oct. 2003. Program on International Policy Attitudes. 22 Dec. 2006 .