Research writing, only fun when picking the topic

Something that i have learned about research writing is that citing work has never meat more to the world that it does when doing a research paper. That and being verbs are the bane of all expository writing teachers existence. Though writing research papers are usually a students worst nightmare I believe them to be really easy due to the fact that anybody can voice their own opinion on a topic, then search for the answers that back them up. Something that is commonly abused though are broad topics and as our reading states, topics are more interesting and appealing to the writer if the topic is concise and narrowed down. Researching a topic of your own choice is one of the easiest things to do because of the interest the writer has pushes them forward to make the point they desire to get out. The problem with research comes from having to research something that gets assigned because the student doesn't have the drive to go out and look for the documents that prove the point of the paper. Library research becomes a nuisance and the work to look through library catalogs to find old government documents or primary source documents goes away when its not a topic of interest. From my own experience I notice the obvious relationship between my attitude and the type of research paper i had to do and every time, the paper of my choice ended up much better and quite informative.


narrow topic
library catalogs journals, professional/governmental documents

The Civic Engagement Argument

In Civic Engagement, Cantor is arguing the opposite point that Chavez was attempting to make in her essay, Demystifying Multiculturalism. Cantor is making the point that multiculturalism is necessary and actually improves the welfare of the country, especially in a liberal arts university. By making people learn about other cultures and ways of life from other students in a close and personal way, it informs the youth and opens the minds to other ways of life, hopefully avoiding future conflicts. Cantor would like to see the breakthroughs of multiculturalism in the arts spread to universities and be just as successful. Cantor believes though that unlike the arts, multiculturalism can only take root through structure set up through the power of the university to make sure that this takes root. Groups have been set up at Illinois such as the program in Inter group Relations that facilitate  structured dialogue in small groups that force people to say the things they want to say and open up the minds of its members. I think that Cantor offers up a great point of view that I can see many great points, such as exposing people to people that are different than them because that gives people perspective. Perspective is key because its more difficult to be intolerant when open-mindedness is being pushed upon you and at some point anybody can be enlightened by even the smallest gesture like feeling a white girls hair for the first time.