The following "Room-for-Debate" appeared in yesterday's The New York Times, entitled "Are Research Papers a Waste of Time?". A panel of five weigh in on whether the traditional research paper is relevant in the Internet Age, where information and scholarly material is readily accessible with minimal effort.
All five panelist seem to agree that research papers--when done properly--remain useful for the modern student, especially in the humanities. Will Fitzhugh, the first of the panelist, believes that while the Internet has made facts and arguments more readily available, these elements alone do not make knowledge, either for the student or for others. Rather, "to make knowledge, which is the foundation of learning, it is necessary to apply thought to information, to think about the facts that have been gathered, and this is work only an individual can do." Much as the historian E.H. Carr once wrote sixty years ago, "The facts do not speak for themselves."
While agreeing that the research process, traditionally understood, is of great usefulness to students even today, some argue that the final product of this research need not be a research paper at all. Courtney L. Young, the third panelist, suggests that other assignments may just as usefully fill the role of the research paper, so long as those assignments are founded upon thorough and considered research. Essays, group presentations, and even blogging (woo-woo!) are all suitable substitutes according to Young, who believes that "the core skills to conceive, investigate and execute the work are the same," as those employed in writing a research paper. Why not diversify the range of assignments, if the underlying process remains the same?
Finally, Pamela Ban, the fifth panelist, suggests that when done properly, the research paper is a unique and "unparalleled" challenge. While, "an essay is achievable with much caffeine and an all-nighter...its older sibling, the longer research paper, requires more time understanding sources, forming an original question and proving a thesis. We've found that this process cannot be automated and the Internet is only an aide, providing sources more quickly than scouring library shelves...Learning how to take what is already known and enhance it in a unique way is an unparalleled learning experience that we should not lose." In short, the research paper involves an act of educationally-valuable creation, where facts, arguments, and thought are combined to produce new knowledge.
These are points with which I can readily agree. I use to hate the extended research paper, and even today continue to struggle with them. It took several years of experience just to begin to understand the amount of time, effort, and consolidation such a project required to do well. Even with the internet, research can be difficult, frustrating, and full of dead-ends; these features are not unique to the pre-Internet Age.
Understanding--both for one's self and for others--requires a more-or-less thorough consideration of facts, evidence, and the thoughtful investigations of other intelligent people. If you're going to contribute anything new and interesting to a field, you have to understand the known facts, and the ways that others have interpreted those facts. Without that familiarity, you won't know if what you're thinking has already been thought by someone else, or if what you're thinking truly accords with all the known facts.
Some have argued that research of this type simply encourages conventional thinking, an assertion with which I disagree. I've been reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, a biography of Abraham Lincoln at its heart, but actually a biography of Lincoln, William Seward, Salmon Chase, Edwin Stanton, and Edward Bates in its entirety. Mrs. Goodwin realized that, given all that has been written about Lincoln over the last 140+ years, one way to say something new on the subject would be to consider Lincoln's life within the context of his other rivals for the Republican presidential nomination of 1860. Indeed, "just as a hologram is created through the interference of light from separate sources, so the lives and impressions of those who companioned Lincoln give use a clearer and more dimensional picture of the president himself."
This is a fascinating insight, and has given us a thoughtful and interesting new way in which to view the 16th president. Yet the approach did not spring from a vacuum; it emerged from an enormous body of material about Lincoln and his time. Considering the numerous ways in which others have considered Lincoln, Goodwin decided upon a less-traditional path. The result of thorough, considered research, in this case at least, proved anything but conventional.
The traditional research paper therefore has its place in the modern education of scholars and thinkers. The internet--considered by some as a short-cut to real research--can assist the researcher in tracking down sources and their content, but it cannot bring those sources together in a new and meaningful way. That requires the insight and organization of a thoughtful and well-practiced individual or team.
So in short, students may be turning in crappy research papers these days, but honestly that is nothing new. And its not a good reason to argue that research papers are irrelevant. I agree with Courtney L. Young from above that the traditional research paper is not the only thing we could ask a student to produce while taking on research. The process is the crucial exercise, not the tedium of paper-writing.
All the same, I'm glad these sorts of questions are asked. Happy Monday :).
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