My Literary Research Process As told through, The Sum of All Thrills in EPCOT Because we all know how thrilling research always is My Literary Research Process by: Caitlin N. Pate
Where do I start? What are you reading? What interests you in this? What could you speak a lot on? Any recurring images, words, or motifs? Every I start a paper, I ask myself. “Where should I start?” How do you begin? I ask myself some simple questions: (read) This part of the process is very much like wandering through the Innoventions building in EPCOT. You have to see what catches your eye, what in intrigues you most. In The Awakening, the images of nature: the ocean, the island, all the foliage, really stuck out to me.
Welcome, engine—English Majors Look around Read up on any source you can find related to your topic. Remember, you don’t want to align perfectly; find things to make it your own! After weaving through all the stuff I didn’t need, I’ve made it to my prospective topic! I’m sure many of us sigh in relief at this part. Well, now it’s time for information. At The Sum of All Thrills, you are greeted with “Welcome Engineer,” but you can make believe that your search engines say “Welcome, English Major” Now at this part of the wild ride of research, I’m sifting through files, trying to find what I can use for my paper. This is the “Briefing Room” at SOAT—the place where you gather up all the information you will need to make and then ride your ride. I like to plug my title into MLA database along with a word that correlates to my topic. For example, when I did research for the awakening, I looked up the title along with words such as “nature” “ocean” and “society”
Bringing it all together I write out the bits of information I gather and start to piece it together. I figure out what information goes together, and the bones of my paragraphs start to appear. I like to make note cards with all the quotes I’m going to use and organize them into categories. This part is where the real work gets started. I have all this information and its yelling at me, “so what?” Now I work on my outline and bring all the information I’ve got into something cohesive. At soat, you enter with all your knowledge into the Design Lab, where you get to piece together your ride. Just like you have to be careful to stay on topic and to cite sources, you have to be careful at the touch screens not to go too fast or too slow, or your coaster won’t work!
Moment of Truth It may take a few drafts, but keep on writing. Make sure to focus on the points you are wanting to make so everything lines up. Don’t be afraid of drafts; you’ll do them whether you like to or not. It can seem overwhelming, but I just focus on each part that I’m working on at a time. Once I’m done arranging my examples and notes from my sources, its time to write the paper. Sometimes this is intimidating, but I try to force ahead and work on it with a spread of a few days, doing rewrites and editing. That way you don’t feel upside down the whole time.
And that’s a wrap You’re all done and turn in your paper Go drink around the world Then after the paper is all turned in and done, go drink around the world!