Responding to "This, Too, Is Research"

Melissa Goldthwaite talks about five different ways/reasons one does research. The two that caught my attention the most were Research for Details and Research for Writing. One of her examples she uses to explain what she means by Research for Detail is when she was writing a poem, and a particular tree outside caught her attention. She researched what kind of tree it was, and it gave her a detail to something she never considered before, making its way into her poem. All of the questions brought up in this section help to dive deeper into the detail of what is being researched. For the tree she wanted to know it's name, not just what it looked like. When it comes to wanting to develop a character, ask what kind of books might they read or what is in their garage? The questions are simply trying to understand the topic or subject more than what you would consider enough. For the other way/reason, Research for Writing, she used the example of her shoebox that contains ticket stubs, receipts, napkins with things written on them etc. She uses those to inspire certain topics for her writing. Once she decides she likes a certain topic she will go more in depth and ask questions like, how popular was this movie I went to? Who is this dancer that I saw and what can I learn about him?

The research I used most for my genre in my essay was Research for Learning. I only knew a few basic things about becoming an ASL interpreter, but I needed to know everything about becoming one. I needed to learn about the skills that are required. About the culture that uses Sign Language. About the actual tests and certifications. I had to research to learn how to be a successful interpreter.