Cynthia R. Haller

In Cynthia R. Haller’s essay “Walk, Talk, Cook, Eat: A Guide to Using Sources,” she uses metaphors to describe four different steps in the research writing process. In her essay, a fictional character named Marvin who is a student at Any University has to write a paper about a health problem caused by drinking polluted water and propose a solution to this problem. He asks an online site for advice. Throughout the essay, O-Prof gives Marvin advice on the research writing process.

According to O-Prof, the first step in the research process is walking. In this step, the researcher must locate and collect sources that are appropriate for their research topic. Two ways of doing this is by checking books out of the library or by running a few searches on Google. O-Prof gave advice on ways that Marvin could narrow his Google search. The site also mentioned problems with using Google, such as not having college level articles in the results or having

When considering whether or not an author is reliable, an individual must figure out whom the author is, and analyze the text to determine what the author is saying. Also, the researcher must consider the text’s general background information, such as the purpose. A point that O-Prof brought up was the reliability of Wikipedia. O-Prof only recommended using Wikipedia as a starting point to gain general background information on the topic. However, an effective way of using Wikipedia is to check out some of the scholarly sources cited at the bottom of the page. The best way to do research other than through Google, Wikipedia, or Google Scholar is to check out the college library’s database portal. These sources will be very narrow and detailed. While they are reliable, they can be hard to understand. In this step, the researcher will most likely find that not all sources agree with each other. This will require the researcher to consult several