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Research Paper

HSBurke's picture

This paper was difficult for me in that I'm not sure I adequately understand what a research paper is supposed to be like. I didn't have a problem using my interview data to support my claim, but was that what we were supposed to be doing? I felt just like I was writing one of our usual papers but using the interviews as texts. Beyond my confusion about the format of the essay, I really enjoyed hearing first hand accounts from my interviews, and using my peers' knowledge to provide data for a topic that I am interested in. Although I didn't end up using one of my interviews in my essay, seeing a different, administrative view of Bryn Mawr was certainly very helpful and enlightening. In the end, I'm not sure I was able to do myself and my efforts justice with this paper. It was difficult for me to present the information in a concise, scientific way when so much of my information was personal to the speakers. However, I did find that my thoughts flowed onto the paper easier this time around. I think this comes from the amount of papers that we've written so far and that my writing is finally growing to reflect/catch up with my expanding thoughts. If I could go back, I think it would have been helpful for me to have seen/ learned about what is meant by a research paper, similiarly or in conjuction with how we learned about interviewing.