8. Speaking Back to Your Sources, Analyzing Data, and Including Your Voice
We have spend a good deal of time talking about how to select, evaluate, and engage with sources. But what about your own perspective on this topic, particularly as it has been shaped and potentially changed by this research and your deepening expertise on this topic? Of course, that is the ultimate end of research: to join the conversation and speak back to the sources you’ve gathered.
What Are We Doing in This Module?
In this module, you will bring together the secondary research you have done and the data you have collected to create a research article that engages others’ ideas while making an argument in your own voice.
How Will We Do It?
This module begins by walking through some of the potential biases in secondary sources before turning to strategies for analyzing your data. After that, it covers two conventions often used to structure research articles—IMRAD and CARS—and closes with some approaches for centering your own voice.
Why Does It Matter?
As we talked about in Module 5 [Chapter], the field of academic research can be an exclusive space. We want to help make room for your ideas in that space. Like the title of this OER underscores, your voice matters. We want to hear what you have to contribute to the scholarly conversation.
Module Goal and Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Identify gaps within the secondary sources you have found
- Analyze data you have collected (from surveys, interviews, observations, texts, or other types) to show how the research you’ve done addresses those gaps
- Compose a research article that addresses the gaps you found
- Infuse the contribution you make with your own voice
