Literary research

Nathan Furr respects m whatever a nonher(prenominal)(prenominal) dry lands for doing literary look. He summarizes these to be Experiencing the some other, acquirement grace and service, amplificationing insight into ourselves, finding freshly ship direction of c al hotshot uping, understanding and write much clearly, and disco precise the joy of discovery and creation (Furr, 3). To these he similarly adds essentially, the power of literary enquiry to combat misin unioniseation. Generally, Furrs reasons atomic deed 18 convertible to my own however, I would make some(a) changes to his stopping points.Two of Furrs keep back ons with which I uniquely carry be that literary inquiry allows adept the ability of understanding and compose more(prenominal) clearly as come up as a major reason for literary look macrocosm baring the joy of discovery and creation.These two reasons argon of key sizeableness beca economic consumption the detective tail enddidate o f literary look for is a gargantuan part of what makes it so appealing to me. By extension, a pile of investigate serves minute value even if the look for was placeed exactly out of my own curiosity because the compiling, organizing, and writing are all essential comp sensationnts in answering the initial question. Without the writing forcing me to compound the facts I pretend discovered and glean coherent conclusions, the research itself as nearly as whatever conclusions I displace are more easy forgotten.The commencement exercise reason Furr lists is experiencing the Other. While this does seem alike a valuable reason, I would more likely phrase it as expanding ones domain view. At to the lowest degree for me, this broader category makes more sense. In the theoretical account he gives about the man from Poland, I think not just do we get to see the world from his perspective, moreover through oral histories like this we gain a valuable insight into the clock t ime and place described. Thinking of it as experiencing the Other feels un teething ringable to me in that it seems to separate the investigator from the research subject, and as I think Furr would have got, that distance is exactly what literary research often seeks to minimize.While Furrs claim that literary research sack embolden in finding new slipway of thinking, I had difficulty with his example of research for buying a computer. At the close of this paragraph, he summarizes the process of research saying, We find with a enigma or question, being researching, follow leads, assemble materials, and past take a crap a product (Furr, 2). I agree that this is how research is conducted however, is that really finding a new way of thinking? It seems more like gathering in gradation to form a conclusion and it should thus be labeled someaffair more like providing learning.I think this is especially unbent because, apart from his example, literary research does not inelu ctably facilitate the discovery of new ways of thinking. I think it is possible that one could research a topic and come forward with a legitimate conclusion or product however without any new way of thinking about the problem beyond having rig a ok conclusion. Ideally, this would not be the solecism. Anyone conducting literary research would discover a new way of seeing a problem, that I think it is too broad a generalization to assume that this is always true. At any rate, I think if this is actually what Mr. Furr is asserting, it would fit better, for me, into the expanding ones world view category.Furr also sees gaining insight into ourselves as another reason for doing literary research. In describing this reason, Furr states that through literary research many throng seek to essentially unlocking what we have always known and affirming it to ourselves. (Furr, 2).This seems to be Furrs near direct reference to investigator slash. I found his lack of a full discussion of this topic to be a major shortcoming of his article. True, research in it most basic form involves uncovering information, scarcely the worldin literary and historical senses as healthy as many othersis a very complex web of thoughts, experiences, and interpretations.I would fight that there is no one Truth, and the whimsey in such a thing is nave. The most obvious case would be the Bible. Many different commonwealth seek to use the Bible to frequent very different claims. Often passages perceive are contradictory and can easily support conflicting contentions. The literary tec does uncover information, nevertheless what is uncovered is lonesome(prenominal) part of the story. Which part is uncovered is generally reliant upon the extensions one utilizes.The selection of source is also a product of bias. For example, I would not use a Hindi newspaper, nor would I look to an un-translated Mayan text. These two can be seen as extremes because of linguistic inaccessibilit y, except in doing research we generally be given toward sources with which we are comfortable whether books, popular media, donnish articles, newspapers, oral histories, or any number of available source material.Beyond comfort with sources, I think Furrs self-reliance falters in that it does not explicitly take into account that researchers find what they seek. This affirming of ones own beliefs is key to researcher bias because, for example, flock who want to claim that the final solution never happened, will do so regardless of any information others distort to point out to them. Further, they will conduct their own research and doubtless find material that supports their conclusion, however false that conclusion may seem to be.Furr discusses the power of misinformation, but fails to consider the fact that many bulk do research and come up with unpopular conclusions that fly in the hardihood of nearly all other findings. merely because we know it happened, when looking at the bug out of the Holocaust we can claim that people denying it existence are spreading misinformation, but with more complex issues, and issues for which there are not survivors, it becomes clear that one mortals misinformation can be anothers highly researched cutting-edge discovery. It all depends on where you look and what you are hoping to find.another(prenominal) of Furrs reasons for literary researchlearning compassion and serviceseems a microchip optimistic to me. Of course, we would like to believe that cognition conquers darkness, but again compassion is a highly subjective issue. Many people research literature, science, and history either explicitly in search of or resulting in reasons to assert their own superiority and use to oppress others. One example would be people who researched, and still do research, on the biological inferiority of minorities to perpetuate and decriminalize racist practices. Finding compassion in such research is difficult if not imposs ible.In terms of service though, I enjoyed Furrs claim that research is an honest action. While again this statement seems a bit simplistic, I think the lineage he quotes from Altick and Fenstermaker that literary research can serve to extend the traditional boundaries of pedantic and critical interest is a valid one (Furr, 2). While I do find Furrs claims to be optimistic, I agree that in the best-case scenarios they are some(prenominal) true and of extreme value, but it is meaning(a) to highlight some possibilities for which his arguments do not seem to account.I do agree that there are many all important(p) reasons both personal and social to assure literary research. Perhaps the strongest impetus for doing research is curiosity, is that so? Ill look it up. On an individual level when someone makes a seemingly unrealistic claim, literary research is an important tool in full-blooded curiosity and quelling argument.Investigating misinformation is also very valuable on a la rger social level. This calls to mind the class on multinational Policy Attitudes 2003 accept that surveyed Americans to determine their rate of misperception about collar issues surrounding the Gulf War and found that 80% Fox News viewers held at least one of the misperceptions (PIPA, 13). To me, this illustrates the importance of literary research more than any other example.If one accepts information from one source uncritically, then they are entirely at the mercy of that sources biases. While I believe it is true that a researcher is limited by their own biases, at least those biases are their own. Exposure to sources with different biases is important in opening up new avenues of inquiry, but undertaking literary research is full of life to locating other biases and interpreting information provided by those sources. Literary research then is the key to knowing not only ones own mind, but understanding the minds of others, and thus one of the most valuable tools anyone c an employ in developing intellectually, personally, and socially.Works CitedFurr, Nathan. Literary look into The Importance of Process and Product.Kull, Steven. Misperceptions, the Media, and the War in Iraq. Pipa.com. 2 Oct. 2003. Program on International Policy Attitudes. 22 Dec. 2006 <http//65.109.167.118/pipa/pdf/oct03/IraqMedia_Oct03_rpt.pdf>.