Use research and writing as a means of discovery, to examine your personal beliefs in the context of multiple perspectives, and to explore focused research questions.
For project 1, I read an essay that had to do with illegal immigration. This is a topic most people have some strong opinions on. What drives people to come to a country and be breaking the law by their sheer existence? Reading about the conditions and trying to view myself in such a desperate situation could potentially affect any bias I had prior, especially if I had never thought about or considered this perspective. If I had only considered the perspective of someone who feels threatened by an illegal immigrant replacing me at a place of work, this may affect my biases. I did some research online and found a study conducted by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress titled "Mexico : a country study". This provided some background as to the economic situation surrounding Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa's motivation to become an illegal immigrant. "The economic policies of the President Luis Echeverría Álvarez also left the Mexican economy in a state of unbalance with rapidly rising inflation." Understanding Dr. Q's perspective, his desperation due to economic disparity, you can understand why he became an illegal immigrant.
Part of the research involved in Project 2 was conducting interviews with others within my community. For me, this consisted conveniently of my classmates. I spoke with them informally and using tools like Facebook to reach those at their own convenience. I asked them questions like "What separates a non-engineer from an engineer?" Some of the responses I received surprised me, even being a part of the community. For example, in my project I quote directly from my classmate Lindsey Tafoya. She speaks about engineers as those who help to make life better for those around them. This is definitely a consequence (generally!) of taking some problem and finding a solution for it. In a nutshell, that's what an engineer is! I had never thought about it like that however. Engineers usually enjoy problem solving, but sometimes we just focus on the joy of solving a problem and getting a solution. Solution seekers. Getting that "Eureka!" moment. However, those solutions usually are for some purpose that helps people in some way. This is how project 2 helped me to examine my own personal beliefs.
Research while writing a paper is always a good idea. For project 3 I was able to find scientific articles in the journals like Linguistics and Translation and International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning to support my piece. I think its important to view counter arguments as well. I did not reference any specifically in my work but I did read numerous articles that claimed the exact opposite of my view to get a sense of what they were saying the problem was. Much of the claims made were refuted in the scientific studies that I use. I know there is a part of my project where I mildly explore that idea of what if text speak was affecting standardized written English. It may not be the worst thing in the world, but that's purely opinion and hard to actually quantify. The English language has changed and evolved over time, "Take a look at written English during Medieval times..." I say. Its definitely changed since then. So while the evidence is not there that text speak is affecting English language, if it did the claims of destroying our language are most likely unfounded.