A large part of the reason we create is to share our ideas and to connect with others. Think of a play performed on stage, a novel in a bookstore, artwork displayed in a museum, or a song on the radio — these are all examples of works that were created with the intention of being shared with an audience.

In today’s ultra-connected world this act of sharing goes beyond the presentation and consumption of information, to a more collaborative interaction between creator and consumer. Social networks are prime evidence of a common desire to interact and engage with an audience. While the creator presents the original information, the audience can also have an influence by responding and building upon that information. Creating new information, especially in the Digital Age, is not just a presentation but a conversation.

Did you ever have a pen pal as a kid? If so, you might remember the excitement of conversing with another person your age who was from a different school or even a different part of the world, sharing your experiences and seeing things from a new perspective. You might have been thrilled by the opinions and experiences you shared (You both have a dog! Your favorite color is green too!), but also intrigued by experiences that were different from yours (At your pen pal's school recess is twice as long!).

As you will explore in the following quests, online social platforms allow us to make the same kinds of exciting connections. These tools go beyond a simple back-and-forth interaction, allowing us to share and respond in more ways and with more people than ever before, and creating a perpetual exchange of information and ideas.

Hopefully you learned in the quests leading up to this challenge that knowledge is not simply discovered, but created, and it is constantly evolving. Research is not a process of recycling information; Rather, it is about building on a body of knowledge, creating new information, and sharing your unique perspective with others.

Thinking about what you’ve learned in the User Response and Peer Review quests, reflect on the following quote by professor and author Gerald Graff, Ph.D.:

“…claims that are arguable and solicit disagreement are a sign of an argument’s viability, not its failure.”

GERALD GRAFF, CLUELESS IN ACADEME: HOW SCHOOLING OBSCURES THE LIFE OF THE MIND (NEW HAVEN, CT: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2003), 54.

Graff argues that if an author’s claims are not disputed, the article is probably stating the obvious, and is therefore not worth being published. In other words, good research sparks conversation.

Do you agree with Graff’s assessment of what makes a work worthy of publication? Why is conversation an important part of the knowledge creation process? Explain your reasoning.