Another assumption that I had about research is that it is a linear process that consists of first finding your evidence and then composing an essay based on one’s findings.

These assumptions came from the fact that I never truly understood what the argument was. I think this stems from the fact that we as a society tend to use words more loosely compared to their dictionary definitions. In addition, I think the assumption of arguments being either “true” or “false” comes from watching the news. This is because news sources presenting their side of the argument as the only answer and every other argument being false. As for the assumption that research is a linear process, I think this stemmed from the fact that I have not had much experience with conducting my own research. This felt valid because in most other classes, there is more of a structure or order, whereas this class feels more of a circular process.

The understanding for arguments not being simply “true” or “false” comes from my own personal research that I have done. There are some articles where the arguments presented are more complex than that in the sense that there can be more than one answer. For example, in some articles, they state that social media worsens the effects of anxiety, but others would state that there was no correlation between them. 

I mainly gained my understanding for the process of research from our discussions in class. This came from us breaking down the information in the slides presented. An example of this is the graph shown to us that showed the order in which research and developing an argument should be done. In the graph, it shows that there will be a lot of “back and forth” between developing the argument and the evidence one finds. This means that they are dependent on each other to further the process.