Whereas Writing Arguments Takes a Subject-Centered Approach to Teaching Composition, The

A Guide to The Curious Researcher

Ballenger, Bruce. The Curious Researcher. 6th ed. New York: Longman, 2009.

Overview:

Whereas Writing Arguments takes a subject-centered approach to teaching composition, The Curious Researcher takes a student-centered approach. Ballenger believes that the best way to introduce students to academic writing is to “place[] the writer at the center of the discourse. As a result, he cannot avoid his role as the main agent of the inquiry nor can he escape the question of his own authority in the conversation” (xxi). Ballenger’s text is concerned with “teaching the spirit of inquiry” (xx). In other words, he wants to teach student how to learn and discover interesting things through research by asking appropriate questions. Ballenger follows through with this student-centered pedagogy throughout the book. This book is geared for the research essay, “a potentially more subjective, less formal, often more exploratory mode that the formal argumentative research paper” (xxi). To help students through writing a research essay, Ballenger takes a five-step approach.

Sections:

The introduction explains the purpose and layout of the book, provides some basic information about research papers, and debunks some myths about academic writing.

Chapter 1 begins by telling students that it is important that they are genuinely interested in their topic; if they are bored with it, then their paper is going to be boring. For this reason, students must choose their topic carefully. Ballenger gives some tips about choosing a topic and determining if it is “researchable.” The rest of the chapter is about developing a working knowledge of the topic and finding the question the paper will focus on. Ballenger gives some tips on preliminary research and how to read.

Chapter 2 helps students develop a research strategy and evaluate their sources. This chapter provides the basics about research (searching databases, understanding call numbers, checking other peoples’ bibliographies, interlibrary loan, conducting interviews and surveys, etc.).

Chapter 3 focuses on note-taking, the “writing in the middle” of the research process that Ballenger claims is “as important, if not more so, than the writing that takes place at the end” (115). According to Ballenger, note-taking is an important step in understanding the topic, and it prevents students from getting bogged down by their sources when they are writing the draft. This chapter also addresses plagiarism and advanced searching techniques (for those who are frustrated with their sources at this point in the process).

Chapter 4 focuses on writing the draft. Ballenger provides tips on how to handle conflicting sources, how to write to make the reader interested, how to write a strong ending, and how to integrate sources into original writing. This chapter also has a section on considering audience and purpose.

Chapter 5 is about the revision process. Ballenger addresses directing the reader’s response, using an appropriate voice, varying sentence length, editing for simplicity, using strong verbs and reorganizing. He provides a list of verbal gestures that are often made is academia (240-242), and a list of alternatives to wordy stock phrases (248).

Appendix A is an MLA guide and Appendix B is an APA guide.

Appendix C is a guide to interpreting assignment prompts.

Strengths:

Ballenger’s step-by-step approach provides the scaffolding that freshmen students need in writing a research papers, preventing them from becoming overwhelmed by the task.

The book not only supports research papers, it also supports assignments such as bibliographies, interviews, and surveys.

The book contains exercises that help students prepare research and write it.

The text supports many of the 102 outcomes:

Demonstrates rhetorical purpose by creating a position relative to their research.

Analyzes the needs of the audience and the requirements of the assignment or task.

Provides supporting evidence from research sources.

Employs a tone consistent with purpose and audience.

Identifies rhetorical strategies and summarizes main ideas of outside sources.

Places sources in context of other research.

Represents and responds to multiple points of view in research.

Identifies a research question.

Develops a research strategy

Identifies and evaluates sources.

Uses research sources to discover and focus a thesis.

Integrates sources with one another and with own analysis.

Demonstrates an understanding of the purposes and conventions of documentation.

Demonstrates awareness of multiple methods of citation.

Weaknesses:

Ballenger does not address genre. He believes that students “will learn the scholarly conventions of their disciplines from those best equipped to teach them”: teachers in their own disciplines (xxi). In contrast, he believes our role is to help students “master valuable library skills and learn many of the technical elements of the research paper, such as citation methods and evaluating sources” (xxi).

The Curious Researcher does not provide students with information about how to treat visual issues. The only paragraph in the entire book about images is in the “Thinking Outside the Box” section of Chapter 3, where Ballenger suggests that a photograph can evoke a powerful reaction, making the paper more affective.

Things to Consider:

The book includes some sample essays from students and Ballenger, as well as sample journals, research logs, exercises, and introductions. However, many of his samples of student writing apparently come from the same couple of students. Furthermore, there aren’t very many examples of complete essays, so instructors will probably want to supplement this text with other readings. While some of the essay topics seem interesting, others do not. Multiple views of the same issue are usually not presented, though they are presented in controversial cases, such as when responding to the topic of concealed weapons (171-174).

The chapters of the book are set up as five steps that are necessary in writing a research essay. Though Ballenger does devote one step to revision, this step model may give the impression that writing is a linear process.

Ballenger calls his method of writing a research essay the “Five-Week Plan.” While he explains that “students should be encouraged to compress the sequence if their research assignment will take less time or ignore it altogether and use the book to help them solve specific problems as they arise” (xxi), students may focus on the five-week structure instead of the actual writing process. Therefore, the instructor may want to emphasize the flexibility of the model and the recursive nature of writing.