Aaron C. Thomas

Professor Jacqueline Cano Diaz

ENC 1102

18 June 2025

Reading Response 1

        Starting off with the definition of what a critical conversation is, a critical conversation is when different people talk about a certain topic in a thoughtful or constructive way, usually ongoing, in writing and or in research. It's like joining in a massive discussion that's already been going, like if you were to join a forum on a long lasting topic and throw your own ideas into the arena with all the others. In this reading, Clary-Lemon, Mueller, and Pantelides explain that research is a way to join these critical conversations by asking good questions and using different methods to find answers (5). I really enjoyed Kenneth Burk’s party metaphor, when you first go to a party, you don't exactly start talking right away, you listen to the conversation, gather information so you can make your own assumptions and ideas, then add those to the conversation and begin talking (10). I loved that metaphor because it showed me an easier way of being able to communicate that idea.

        This reading also talks about “genuine inquiry” a lot, which is just a way of saying doing research on something because you are interested, not just to prove something or for an assignment. The authors of the reading say that research should always start with a question, rather than a thesis statement (6). They also say you shouldn’t know the answer before you start, it should be something that is gained after the sum total of your research. If you go in with preexisting bias to one side or the other, you’ll have skewed results. I think as I’ve read the reading more it’s really more about whether or not you care about the content and making sure you are being open about whatever the outcome may be.

        I really liked one thing about this reading, its that the authors focused on the fact that research is a messy process, it usually doesn't follow a linear path. Questions can be changed, methods can be reworked, and findings could throw off your entire project, and the authors point out that this is completely ok and normal. I can think of more than a few times when my research didn’t go as initially planned, hearing this from the authors really comforted me.

        I also learned a lot from this reading, one thing I learned was how research is always a bit subjective, no matter how you slice it. I used to think that research always had to be entirely objective. But the authors really reinforce that research is shaped a good bit by people's beliefs, and instead of trying to be unbiased, we just need to be ethical and honest in how we conduct our research regardless of our beliefs.

        Looking at the things that were familiar to me is the idea that research doesn't always go smoothly, I used to be kind of ashamed of how messy my research was, struggling to find the right sources or keep within the scope of my research has always been a challenge, so when they brought up that it was indeed supposed to be messy, I think I was already familiar with the idea of how messy it gets.

        Finishing up, the one question I would pose to the class would be: “If your research led to more questions then answers, where would you go from there?”