Research

I really enjoy conducting primary and secondary research My undergraduate degree in anthropology taught me the necessary skills for doing primary research and my graduate degree has taught me to look carefully at the materials I find for validity, to ascertain bias on the part of the source, and how to best search for reliable sources on a topic. I am also able to take those sources and synthesize them into materials to share information on the topic, whether that is a research paper, annotated bibliography, literature review, or presentation on the topic. Full documents can be seen by clicking on the images or the link within the text.

Agile and Technical Writing Literature Review and Prezi

This literature review and Prezi were created as a final project in Theory of Technical Communication. I researched Agile methodologies and their usage (especially Scrum) within the technical writing profession. After researching how Agile is used by technical writers, I looked into how to best work within an Agile environment as a technical writer. This piece shows my ability to research a topic that is not widely covered and organize it into a piece that can be read to get the general idea of what's out there and what it means, as well as my ability to consolidate that information into a presentation, such as this one created with Prezi.

Rhetorical Analysis of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Movement in Israel

This paper is a rhetorical analysis written for Rhetorical Theory using Toulmin’s theories to analyze the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement against Israel as well as arguments against BDS. Toulmin’s theory, in its most basic form, the argument is comprised of data (D) and claims (C). A claim is the conclusion one is seeking to present, and the data is the information from which that claim is extracted. According to Toulmin, “if the claim is challenged, it is up to us to appeal to these facts, and present them as the foundation upon which our claim is based. Of course we may not get the challenger even to agree about the correctness of these facts…” (Toulmin 90) This is particularly true in the artifacts I analyzed, as both sides frequently have contrary ideas of the “truth”.

Further, warrants (W) can be brought in to support the data utilized to come to the claim, or conclusion. An argument can logically follow the pattern of D, since W, so C. The warrant, or W, is not always explicitly stated, however finding even the inexplicitly stated warrants is necessary to the understanding of the argument. Some warrants call for what is called a qualifier (Q) to make the statement true, as the claim given is not always true given the data and warrants. And finally, to further back up the warrants given, we have backings (B), “without which the warrants themselves would possess neither authority nor currency.” (Toulmin 96)

This analysis shows both sides of the argument with as little bias as I could manage by breaking the arguments of both sides into their very components. It displays my abilities in research as well as my ability to present an argument without taking sides, as well as my ability to apply rhetorical theories to contemporary events. These skills, to garner information that is reliable even in controversial areas, to synthesize it, to put it into a readable format, have been acquired and refined over the course of my studies here at UA Little Rock.

By Spaynton (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Annotated Bibliography

This annotated bibliography was written for a class in Historic Mortuary Archaeology, where we gathered information from local cemeteries to do a report on the correlation between gender and language in epitaphs over time in Pulaski County. The annotated bibliography was created to contribute to a literature review on the subject.

This assignment shows my ability to gather information on a subject (even one fairly uncommon) and review it for relevance to a project. It also shows my ability to synthesize information into a format that can be quickly read over and then utilized towards a larger project.

Photo by Monica Davidson. Tombstone of Max and Esther Hilb at the Oakland Jewish Cemetery, Little Rock, Arkansas