When I purchased the text I thought I would not be intriguedby this, as I am not by my other courses. However, I felt like the author was actually talking to me as appose to just dictating the information. From the preface and the choice of words Badkechoose I knew he wanted to grab his reader’s attention especially sinceresearch is a topic he truly enjoys (mentioned in the preface).
Learning the origin of how knowledge waspreserved and passed down from one generation to the next and how the printingpress was viewed as a way to controlpeople and how and what was printed gavepeople, the “elite”, power made me think of how much of our history we truly don’tknow about. For example: during those times is there information that we werenever given the opportunity to obtain because some “gatekeeper” felt it wasn’t appropriatefor readers or felt that maybe we shouldn’t know these things. What is thetruth? I know I may be going off topic but that’s how I felt when I beganreading the text and learning the power words and publishing possessed.
“Opinion is not fact.” chapter 8 page 142. I felt this connected the two chapters because in chapter one, information was beingcontrolled by the “elite” so their opinion on what was necessary information,was not, especially for those seeking information they were being deprived of; until the World Wide Web came about and anyonewas able to publish work, whether reliable information or not. And in chapter 8,Badke was teaching us how to find the right information needed for research byfinding reliable primary sources and using the information properly. In addition, opinions are hard not to come bybecause everything from newspaper articles to media and textbooks, all posses biasthoughts. I suppose bias thoughts are valuable especially for the researchingfinding justified information, however, as mentioned in the text, it must be aprimary source.
