Knatz Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively

Summary:

In Margaret Kantz article, "Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively", she uses a story about a girl named Shirley, who is writing a research paper. Kantz uses this story as a lesson for her audience, who are students like Shirley and who may be going through the same situation Shirley is going through. Shirley asks her friend for help so she can better her paper. Shirley's friend instructs her how to make her paper more creative and that facts can be claims. Also, In this article it also talks about how you should not trust everything you read to be true, which is important.

Synthesis:

In Kantz's article, the main focus is to help students write research papers and how to make their papers stronger. Kantz's article is very similar to Klein's because they both deal with helping students improve how they write research papers and the proper techniques to follow.

Before You Read:

     I would define a fact as something that is true and can be supported by something that actually exists or has happened. A claim is a statement that has no support or reason behind it. An opinion is someones personal view or belief. Finally, an argument is a disagreement with someone involving different points of views.

QD:

1. Kantz contends that facts, opinions, and arguments are actually claims. Kantz goes on by saying that most people believe a statement is a fact just because people have "agreed that it's true and treat it as true" (pg. 67).  Also Kantz goes on by saying that students expect textbooks to tell them the truth, but in reality are just opinions and should not be trusted. Students have to stop believing everything they read is true and start making claims.

2. Kantz says that students don't know how, misunderstand, or don't comprehend about how texts work. She goes on by saying that they misunderstand sources because they read them as stories. Kantz also says that students expect sources to tell the truth. Furthermore, she says that students don't know the difference between facts and claims. Judging from my own experience I would have to say she is correct. I tend to misunderstand everything she listed and always believe what a textbook says is true. I now feel that I will not fall into these traps listed above anymore and have a better understanding of how texts work.


AE:

2. At first I did not agree with Kantz's statement of creativity being the reason for research. Research is about facts and is hard to mix creativity in with that. However, after thinking about it for a little bit and continuing to read I found out that you can have creativity in a research paper. The creativity can come from forming your own argument that you believe in and supporting it with research. This is a hard concept to grasp, but with practice I am sure it will make your papers stronger and stand out.

MM:

I think the constructs that Kantz is trying to analyze is that facts aren't always true statements. We have to draw meaning from the context and look deeper to create a a view point of our own instead of only using the research we found as facts. We shouldn't think that something is true just because other people agree on it being accurate.

Thoughts:

In my opinion, I thought that this reading was hard to understand because Kantz made the reading really drawn out and longer than it had to be. I liked some of the stuff Kantz had to say, like not believing everything you read. I found myself able to relate to this and now know not to do this. I feel like Kantz also made the reading a lot harder to understand than it had to be.