Margaret Kantz

IWA: 2/4/13

Summary: In the article "Helping Students Use Textual sources Persuasively”, Margaret Kantz attempts to tell her audience, students trying to write a paper, the proper method on how to write a persuasive research paper. She argues that today this is not the main focus of English classes and in order to properly write an effective research paper, students must be able to be persuasive because it helps them analyze what they’re reading instead of just regurgitating facts.

Synthesis: Kantz’s writing reminds me of Kleine’s piece because they are both providing their audiences with the way they think is best to write a research paper and give us different approaches to tackle the paper and effectively write it. In addition her work made me think of Berkenkotter’s piece. Kantz piece focused on how her students wrote papers and analyzed their methods much like Berkenkotter focused on other writer’s methods.

QD 1: Kantz says that fact, opinions, and arguments are really interrelated. Shirley makes it out to be the three don’t work together and are used in different contexts. Kantz believes these three work together when writing a research paper; we get the facts and form an opinion about them and then use our opinion about those facts to form our argument (the main point of the paper).

QD 2: Some things Kantz says students don’t know how to do or misunderstand include: believing factual text always state the truth, how to read rhetorically, and how to use a research paper to teach someone rather than restate known facts. Based on my own experiences I definitely agree students don’t understand these things. After reading her piece though I have a better grasp on them.

AE 2: Before coming to college I never believed creativity and research went hand in hand. To me research papers simply were about telling your teacher what information you had found while organizing it in some logical way. Our ideas did not overlap but now I believe the two can in fact be put together to create an effective paper. I’m not sure where this will work for me seeing as I haven’t tried it out yet, but I may be able to use it in a later paper for this class.

MM: Kantz’s piece is trying to analyze how research and creativity can be put together to make an effective argument in a research paper. This is useful for me in an educational area because it may help me improve my writing skills and receive better grades for my work.

Afterthoughts: I believe Kantz’s piece put a new spin on my perspective on how to effectively write a research paper. Prior to reading this I never would’ve used her methods described but now I believe it will be very helpful to me in my academic persuit.