Submitted by admin-boss on
This could be an interesting and possibly more helpful way to discuss research sources with patrons. Via Stephen Francoeur's Digital Reference blog:
...an article from 2008 by Joseph Bizup from Rhetoric Review (volume 27, number 1) titled “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing”. Arguing convincingly that the traditional model of sources that we teach to students–primary, secondary, tertiary–is limiting and confusing, Bizup goes on to suggest that we instead teach students to think about the different way that we use sources in writing.Specifically, he recommends divvying up source types into four categories:
- Background: sources in which you want to assert that something is a fact and which can contextualize your claims
- Exhibits: sources that you offer an analysis or interpretation of
- Arguments: sources that are part of the discourse about your topic
- Method: sources that you use to delineate the method of analysis you will use or the terminology you will employ
Put more succinctly, Bizup wants us to teach students that “[w]riters rely on background sources, interpret of analyze exhibits, engage arguments, and follow methods” (76). As a mnemonic aid, the system is referred to as the BEAM model. Not only is this model useful in getting students to think about how they will use their sources in their paper and whether they have the right number from each category, but is also useful in teaching students how to analyze a source critically. In his classes, Bizup asks his students to read a source and, following the BEAM model, to indicate to what use each source is put.
- Sunni
BC ELN