Curious Reader Exploring Personal And Academic Inquiry

Summary: Preface. Introduction. I. The Process Of Inquiry. 1. Acquiring the Inquiry Habit. Start with Questions Before Answers. Exercise 1.1: Twenty Ways to See a Blackbird. Using an Open-ended Process. Choose an Inquiry Strategy. Investigate in a Rhetorical Context. Exercise 1.2: Practice with the Strategy of Inquiry. Inquiry and Research. 2. The Inquiring Reader. Exercise 2.1: Autobiography of a Reader. Exercise 2.2: What M...akes a "Good Reader"? Inquiring Minds and Intellectual Coach Potatoes. Start with Questions Before Answers. Reading Behaviors and Perspectives. Techniques for Strategic Reading. 1. Choose an Inquiry Strategy. 2. Understand the Rhetorical Context. 3. Avoid Making Pastel Islands. 4. Read Twice. 5. Be a Conversationalist. Exercise 2.3: Practicing Dialectical Thinking. Exercise 2.4: Responding to Difficult Texts. Reading Images. Exercise 2.5: Reading Images. Exercise 2.6: Reading Graphics. Readers are Curious. 3. How Do You Know? Exercise 3.1: Your Ways of Knowing. Entitled to Your Own Opinion. Exercise 3.2: Knowing What is Appropriate Evidence. Not Entitled to an Opinion. Opinions in an Uncertain World. At Issue: Should educators use commercial services to combat plagiarism? Responses from John Barrie, President Turnitin.com. Response from Rebecca Moore Howard, Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric as Syracuse University. Believing and Doubting. Exercise 3.3: Practice With Believing and Doubting. II. FORMS FOR DISCOVERY. 4. The Researched Essay: "Essaying" as a Mode of Inquiry. Introduction: The Researched Essay. No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch by Ann Hodgman. Are the claims made by dog food manufacturers about the canine (and human) appeal of their products true? There's only one way to find out. Why Did God Make Flies? by Richard Conniff. Why does the world need flies? Conniff explores all the purposes flies seem to serve, showing us how fascinating these often disgusting creatures can be. . Yarn by Kyoko Mori. Mori wonders about her own love of knitting and discovers a surprising history. She also learns more about herself from the symbolic meanings of knitting she explores. Did NASA Fake the Moon Landing? By Ray Villard. About 5% of the population believes NASA didn't actually go to the moon, and this essay looks at the conspiracy theories and the evidence to answer the title's question. Looking at Women by Scott Russell Sanders. How should men look at women? Sanders grapples with the question with remarkable honesty, seeking a gaze worthy of women's "splendor." Dinosaur Dreams: Reading the Bones of America's Psychic Mascot by Jack Hitt. What causes "America's periodic obsession with dinosaurs"? Hitt considers the role dinosaurs have played in the American imagination, from schoolbooks to Jurassic Park to museum reconstructions. . My Secret History by Jillian A. Sims. While genealogical research can give us a comforting rel [read more]