Q&R 5: Why do students have such a hard time writing original papers based on textual sources?
Response:I believe that as students we do have some problems with writing papers that come from textual sources. As students we believe that anything written in books should be facts but after reading “Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively” by Margaret Kantz I realized that textbooks don’t always narrate just facts. In the article it gave an example of student which I can relate to and her name was Shirley. It explained that Shirley had a passion for English history and therefore she decided to write on the Battle of Agincourt. She put a lot of facts into the paper she wrote but didn’t put any of her own thought into it. Instead she just recapped what the articles she had collected said. I also have problems when writing over textual sources because usually we just want to collect all the facts and write them in a story form, and that’s not the correct way to do it. It is easier to quote than to paraphrase, and it is easier to build the paraphrase, without comment or with random comments, into a description of what one found than it is to use them as evidence in an original argument (76). The article showed me to that I have to evaluate the material and use it as proof in an original argument. This will help me support the argument and I will be using textual sources at the same time. Student also have problems when writing papers that come from textual sources because students misunderstand the sources and read them as stories, expect their sources to tell the truth; hence, they equate persuasive writing in this context with making things up, or students don’t understand the facts are a kind of claim(78). This article has helped me understand how to incorporate textual sources with my own original comment.