Research Synthesizing Essay
When I first started the Honors Program and learned that I would have to do research, I was a little apprehensive. Research to me meant some sort of science and from my experience in high school, science wasn’t my strong suit. I’m a writer, photographer and artist. Scientific research wasn’t my idea of fun ways to spend my college experience. At first, I thought I would wait and start research during my third or fourth year at university, but every year when I updated my portfolio, I realized that in each class I did an assignment or project that had some type of research behind it, especially classes within my major, Mass Media. From there I learned that not all research was like I first imagined it to be.
In my Honors First Year Experience class, I first learned that research doesn’t need to be in a science discipline for it to be research. I learned that research is a learning process and that someone must learn and develop their research skills overtime to develop their maximum ability. I also learned research needs to be something that is innovative because if people continue researching similar topics, no new important information will be found. Research benefits me as a Mass Media student and future journalist, because it gives me the opportunity to strengthen my information gathering skills. In my research essay for this course, I show how important note-taking is to understand what people are saying and to understand their ideas. This skill helps me when I am interviewing people during my career.
Another class I never thought I would be doing any type of research in was my Honors Leadership and Interpersonal Communication class. This class helped me start to ask questions related to my major and about my future as a journalist. While I was writing my research essay, I analyzed how ethics and communication are constantly changing in journalism. Most of my sources were a mixture of different ideas about my topics, and I learned how to integrate better information with my ideas to make my essay successful. In this essay, I was able to draw upon 10 different sources to help me find information that supported my thesis. This experience helped prepare me for my original research project and further helped me in finding reliable resources for future journalism articles.
My Multimedia Writing class was the first class in my major where I was able to understand that I do research just in a different style than traditional scientific research. This project gave me the idea to do my original research project within my major. I identified my own research question, found sources and information, and developed my research question so everything I put in the final website revolved around the research topic. I will use the techniques I learned from this project as a future journalist. In my Honors Professional Communication and Interviewing class, I completed my first research assignment within a group context. I worked with another student to create our own business and propose it to a panel of judges. I was able to think how I need to use the information I gathered with the utmost importance because it needed to be fair to my business partner and the other teams whose businesses we were competing against. All our information on tasks and research was shared.
Finally, my original research project brought all of these learned ideas and skills together to create a successful research project. This research project was one of the best experiences I have had during my college years. I got to work in a different country, with people in other disciplines and I got to explore the different opportunities I will come across as a global journalist. We were able to research the different dialects that are across northern and coastal England. I learned that as a leader in this field I will come across many different problems. I learned that even when you have a goal or idea in mind for a project in journalism, it can be best to not always go exactly by the book to get the data and information from the people you interview. Also, working with people on a project can be difficult because you want to make sure you are all on the same page when you start collecting data or grouping together the project. From working in a group on this project, I have learned strength can come from multiple people with a variety of ideas, but with all the ideas you still need to make sure you get all the right information from the data and not lose sight of the goal you are trying to get from the project. This research project did a good job in helping me understand how to handle a leadership role in my chosen career.
Overall, my undergraduate experience has allowed me to expand on my knowledge as a researcher and show me how I adapt my questioning skills in a variety of settings. I have built upon my information literacy and information synthesis and expanded my knowledge for research in a journalism setting. As I finish my last semester at MNSU, I will prepare myself to use these skills in my journalism career. With my research skills, I will be an effective journalist.
In my Honors First Year Experience class, I first learned that research doesn’t need to be in a science discipline for it to be research. I learned that research is a learning process and that someone must learn and develop their research skills overtime to develop their maximum ability. I also learned research needs to be something that is innovative because if people continue researching similar topics, no new important information will be found. Research benefits me as a Mass Media student and future journalist, because it gives me the opportunity to strengthen my information gathering skills. In my research essay for this course, I show how important note-taking is to understand what people are saying and to understand their ideas. This skill helps me when I am interviewing people during my career.
Another class I never thought I would be doing any type of research in was my Honors Leadership and Interpersonal Communication class. This class helped me start to ask questions related to my major and about my future as a journalist. While I was writing my research essay, I analyzed how ethics and communication are constantly changing in journalism. Most of my sources were a mixture of different ideas about my topics, and I learned how to integrate better information with my ideas to make my essay successful. In this essay, I was able to draw upon 10 different sources to help me find information that supported my thesis. This experience helped prepare me for my original research project and further helped me in finding reliable resources for future journalism articles.
My Multimedia Writing class was the first class in my major where I was able to understand that I do research just in a different style than traditional scientific research. This project gave me the idea to do my original research project within my major. I identified my own research question, found sources and information, and developed my research question so everything I put in the final website revolved around the research topic. I will use the techniques I learned from this project as a future journalist. In my Honors Professional Communication and Interviewing class, I completed my first research assignment within a group context. I worked with another student to create our own business and propose it to a panel of judges. I was able to think how I need to use the information I gathered with the utmost importance because it needed to be fair to my business partner and the other teams whose businesses we were competing against. All our information on tasks and research was shared.
Finally, my original research project brought all of these learned ideas and skills together to create a successful research project. This research project was one of the best experiences I have had during my college years. I got to work in a different country, with people in other disciplines and I got to explore the different opportunities I will come across as a global journalist. We were able to research the different dialects that are across northern and coastal England. I learned that as a leader in this field I will come across many different problems. I learned that even when you have a goal or idea in mind for a project in journalism, it can be best to not always go exactly by the book to get the data and information from the people you interview. Also, working with people on a project can be difficult because you want to make sure you are all on the same page when you start collecting data or grouping together the project. From working in a group on this project, I have learned strength can come from multiple people with a variety of ideas, but with all the ideas you still need to make sure you get all the right information from the data and not lose sight of the goal you are trying to get from the project. This research project did a good job in helping me understand how to handle a leadership role in my chosen career.
Overall, my undergraduate experience has allowed me to expand on my knowledge as a researcher and show me how I adapt my questioning skills in a variety of settings. I have built upon my information literacy and information synthesis and expanded my knowledge for research in a journalism setting. As I finish my last semester at MNSU, I will prepare myself to use these skills in my journalism career. With my research skills, I will be an effective journalist.
Research Essay
research_essay_hoffman.docx | |
File Size: | 16 kb |
File Type: | docx |
For my Honors First Year Experience Class, we discussed as a class what it takes to fulfill our research competency. Most of the students in the class had no idea where to start when developing their research competency. I see research as answering new and challenging questions and then being able to explain my findings so other people can understand them. I learned research is a learning process and someone must learn and develop their skills over time to develop their maximum ability to conduct research. I also learned research needs to be something that is innovative and important, so the answers to research questions lead others to discover more unanswered questions. Research benefits me as a Mass Media student, because it gives me the opportunity to strengthen the information literacy and information synthesis skills I need to know for my major. This essay helped me start to access information effectively and critically. I was able to learn how I can start to use these critical thinking skills in the research I will need to do in my future career as a journalist. I was able to think how I need to use the information I gather with the uttermost importance because it demonstrates my knowledge of the ethical use of information especially if I want to be an ethical journalist. I have learned through developing my research competency in this essay how to develop my ability to evaluate and incorporate selected information into a knowledge base and then apply it to my later research. I have showed how I’ve developed my ability to organize other peoples’ thoughts and ideas in this essay because I show how important note taking is to understand what people are saying and to understand their ideas. This skill helps me when I am interviewing people in my career. Through this essay I describe and analyze my view on my development in research. This essay reflects upon my findings of my research skills, and how I will use them while here at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Honors: Leadership and Interpersonal Communication Research Essay
research_paper.docx | |
File Size: | 23 kb |
File Type: | docx |
For my Honors Leadership and Interpersonal Communication class, we discussed what kind of leadership problems could arise when we are in our future leadership roles or positions in our chosen career paths. We all had different choices on future career paths, and it was interesting to see all the problems and questions that we could come up with. It was our assignment to research questions about leadership and interpersonal communication and develop a leadership philosophy and communication tactics that would help solve resolve the problem we found in our research question. I learned that as a leader in my field I could come across many different problems. I learned that it is best to be unbiased and open-minded when approaching a problem in the field of media. This form of research helped benefit me as a Mass Media student, because it gave me the opportunity to strengthen the information literacy and information synthesis skills I need to know for my major. This research paper did a good job in helping me understand how to handle a leadership role in my chosen career. Through this essay I describe and analyze my research on a problem that a leader can encounter in the field of journalism, and how their interpersonal communication skills and leadership philosophy can help solve the problem. This essay had me analyze how ethics and communication are constantly changing in journalism and helped me develop my ability to evaluate and synthesize diverse perspectives on any given topic. Most of my sources were a mixture of different ideas about my topics, and I learned how to better integrate their information with my ideas to make my essay successful. In this essay I was able to draw upon 10 different sources to help me find information that supported my thesis and it exhibited my ability to draw upon multiple sources to present a coherent and integrated thesis statement. This experience helped prepare me for my original research project and will further help me in finding reliable resources for future journalism articles. This essay helped me reflect on the research process because it helped me understand how I can use journalism to better inform an audience about a topic, and it demonstrated my ability to reflect upon how this paper led to my new knowledge and understanding about the research process. It also helped me see that research isn’t a scary topic because I do it every day, just in a different form of research. This essay reflects upon my findings on research I found, and how I will use them to further my research competency while here at Minnesota State University, Mankato and as a future journalist.
Multimedia Research Final Project
final_project_url.docx | |
File Size: | 11 kb |
File Type: | docx |
For the classes in my major I need to do a lot of research on topics to get reliable information for the articles and stories I write. I need sources and ways to double check my findings especially if numbers are involved. In my Writing for Multimedia class we were given half the semester to create a huge media project created from many smaller multimedia projects. After they were completed, they were put together to create a media website. It was my job to find a research topic with a wide scope of information but concrete enough to be one large topic. This project helped me develop my idea of original research and information synthesis. I learned that as a leader in my field I could come across many different problems with facts and making sure that what I write is unbiased and true. I accomplished this task by using this information effectively and ethically to accomplish a research goal by creating this project and writing a story about what I had learned from my interviews. I chose the Modern Languages Department at MNSU. I researched the Spanish Club, their study abroad options for students, and I created a map of all the Spanish-speaking countries where students and faculty have lived or visited. From all my interviews in this project I was able to organize everyone’s ideas into a working website and research project. In the group of people I interviewed there was a variety of majors and levels of Spanish speakers. I was able to ask informative questions that helped me understand their perspective of the topic and effectively contribute their perspective into the project. The most important thing I learned for this project was how to do an original research project within my major and helped demonstrate my ability to reflect upon how this project led to my new knowledge and understanding about the research process. This project helped me understand that what I do as a journalist every day is research, it is just a different way of doing research. I was able to identify my own research question and develop it so that it extends my knowledge and practice of my discipline. I conducted primary research by attending Spanish Club meetings and interviewing students and teachers who traveled abroad or taught in the Spanish department. I exhibited this completed project by turning it in to my instructor for grading and publishing the website online for anyone to read and review. This research project did a good job in helping me understand how to handle my communication in a leadership role in my chosen career. I really enjoyed this assignment, and I am looking forward to furthering research topics related to research in my field of journalism and how people react to journalists like myself. This project reflects upon my findings on research I found, and how I will use them to further my research competency while here at Minnesota State University, Mankato and as a future journalist.
Honors Communication Final Presentation
final_presentation.pptx | |
File Size: | 500 kb |
File Type: | pptx |
Another class I took to fulfill my credits to complete my path for Honors with Distinction was the Honors Professional Interviewing and Communication course. For the majority of the class we worked on our interviewing skills and presentations in front of a variety of audiences. The second half of the semester we worked in smaller groups to create a business and follow the different types of communication strategies businesses use to build clientele and advertise. My partner and I created a business called Exploring Borders that advertised to college students or young adults with little money who wanted to go on vacation but didn't have the time to plan one. We then communicated with other groups in our class, to further develop our image as a business. I learned in this class what it takes to professionally communicate in a business setting especially when it comes to making allies to make your business more successful. This project and presentation helped me develop my ability to access information effectively and critically. These skills helped us research a market and variety of communication skills to successfully create a business and business model. We researched our target market and the best ways to strategize our advertising media. I learned to develop my research competency through this project and presentation by developing my ability to evaluate and incorporate this select information into a knowledge base and apply it to my later research. I need to make sure I am a professional communicator during my interactions with people. Through my many sources and interactions within this assignment I was able to properly organize other’s ideas and use that information to contribute it, in a beneficial way, to the project and presentation. I really enjoyed this assignment even though it was a lot of work in a small amount of time. This project reflects upon my findings on research I found in the field of business communications and target marketing, and how I will use them to further my research competency while here at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Research Project
Humans of Northumberland: A Language Variation Project in the UK
Project Website:
northumberland.atavist.com/humans-of-northumberland
northumberland.atavist.com/humans-of-northumberland
For my research project I wanted to do something within my discipline. At the beginning it was hard for me to find something I could do within my major and also have it be represented as a research project. Finally, at the end of my fall semester of my junior year one of my favorite professors within my major said she was going to do a study abroad research project with the English department. This research project was one of the best experiences I have had during my college years. I got to work in a different country, with people from other disciplines and I got to explore the different opportunities I can come across as a global journalist. It was our assignment and goal to research the different dialects that are across northern and coastal England. You can go almost 10 miles to another town and the people there speak a slightly different dialectic than where you were before. I learned that as a researcher in this field myself and my group members can come across many different problems. I learned that even when you have a goal and idea of specific data in mind for a project in journalism it can be best to not always go exactly by the book to get the data and information from the people you interview. Also, working with people on a project can be difficult because you want to make sure you are all on the same page when you start collecting data or grouping together the project. From working in a group on this project I have learned that strength can come from multiple people with a variety of ideas, but with all the ideas you still need to make sure you get all the right information from the data and not lose sight of the goal you are trying to get from the project. I really enjoyed this project and I am looking forward to furthering research with Professor Hanel to further my research competency. In this project I was able to develop my research competency and complete the levels in original research and dissemination. Through this project my group and I describe and analyze data collected from different people from different regions and dialects in Northern England to compare how they react to questions about their dialect and how their dialect represents who they are. We completed our data comparison and uploaded our findings and analysis to a website. From there we were able to share our complete research with anyone through our online platform. We discussed as a group where the best place to present our research would be and decided to present it to our faculty advisors and the incoming class at the school where we were at in the UK. We spent the last few days in the classroom during our time abroad preparing out website so we could present our finished project and on the last day of our trip to the UK we presented it. We also published the website online so anyone searching for something like it may come across it. This project reflects upon my findings on research I found, and how I will use them to further my research competency and my future in journalism while here at Minnesota State University, Mankato and my future as a journalist.