Reflection On The Curious Researcher

As a Nursing major, I have learned that excelling in college academic writing and critical thinking is essential to succeed in the health care profession. Over the course of this semester I have made tremendous changes to my way of thinking as a writer; such as my skills of critical analysis significantly improving. It was quite evident to myself that writing was a weakness for me throughout high school, and struggled with the confidence to believe in my writing. Typically, I focused most of my attention to the high school five-paragraph essay format, which constricted my initial objective. Thus, I tended to divert the attention from the actual imperative meanings of my papers. Improvements I have made in my writing and critical thinking skills …show more content…
When researching a topic to gather your information, you may find yourself overwhelmed with the overload of information provided online. An excellent technique that was utilized is digital literacy, which is a tool that enables you “to find, evaluate, utilize, share, and create content using information technologies and the internet.” (cornell.edu) With digital literacy, I could evaluate information and its sources critically. Bruce Ballenger, author of the The Curious Researcher, introduced different techniques to limit the search to academic and credible sources. Also, an immense project that was done in the course, was the introduction and training of creating our own Wix page, which included projects that were completed throughout the semester such as; the prologue, synopsis, survey, research paper, and ethnography. With the completion of these projects, communications have been a major component that has improved …show more content…
English 102 has been a huge breakthrough in the aspect of communicating with the audience at a clear academic level. A proper guide to writing a research paper was implemented to encourage the “Spirit of Inquiry”, which enabled students to investigate a topic open-minded. This approach, helped me research a topic that captivated me to explore all aspects, besides solely trying to prove your point. With this approach, I could use data collected from credible sources and incorporate them into my paper, which I believes helps the audience understand all different perspectives of the topic. For instance, my topic of Syrian refugees, which inquired of whether the relocation of Syrian refugees into the United States would increase the risks of terrorism invasion. However, with the exploration and open-ended research, I could include data from the Syrian refugee’s view point and their struggles, as well as the probable risks. To captivate the audience’s standpoint of the deliberation, I sought out both opposing and supporting audiences to survey and analyze different