Category: Cycle 1

Week 1 Journal, Unit 4

David said something I’ve been thinking about. What is the goal of research? To move from assumption to understanding. It’s not about being a problem solver, because in many cases it won’t work. This interests me because it forces me to look at my research question with a different focus, with a different perspective.

And really, I do my best research when I have genuine curiosity. There are feelings that are powerful and difficult to explain, such as passion. For me, curiosity and passion go hand in hand.

The best presentations I’ve given in past years have been the ones that sparked the most curiosity in me. I can’t force myself to make a topic interesting; I don’t know how to make something boring become interesting. But what I can do is turn a topic over in my mind until I find something that catches my attention, a thread to pull. I imagine it like examining a Rubik’s cube—you keep turning the problem, rotating the cube on all sides, until you see something compelling. From there, you start pulling the thread, and everything gains momentum.

Being honest about this allows me to stay curious, and in the end, it allows me to speak with interest and, I believe, to convey that interest to others.

Now, my current research question generates empathy in me, but not curiosity. It’s too abstract, with too many angles. I can’t find the thread to pull. However, there are smaller aspects that catch my attention and that could potentially evolve into new research questions. These are:

• How to design a rhetoric course focused on practice rather than theory, but still with academic grounding.
• How to use skill-learning models from fields such as Olympic athletes and performing artists to learn communication skills. What has science said about learning in sports, and how can that be applied to rhetoric?
• How to make virtual presentations more interactive and engaging.

I like the idea of iteration. I like seeing how artists revisit an idea again and again, combining and repeating. I want to do the same with interventions; in fact, I have to.

Something to keep in mind for my next intervention is information collection. I need to triangulate data without recording participants. So far, I have:

• My own perception
• Audience perception
• Perception of people regarding an exercise

Is there another way to measure research results that does not rely only on perception?

Questions for Tim, the librarian:

• Information on pedagogy in communication and public speaking, debate
• Books on pedagogy in skill learning

Edit: something really important, I want to systematise the way I approach to make a creative presentation/workshop, I already kinda know how I do it, but I’ve never reflect and write it down, I’d like to have a rout the next time I wonder: how do I make an appealing speech?

I just came out of an interview with a stakeholder. It didn’t go as well as I wanted.

I was nervous; I hadn’t been nervous in a while. I spoke in a tangled way, that didn’t happen to me last year.

I only had half an hour. I gave context that apparently wasn’t necessary. If I don’t explain context, people get lost, but if I give context they already know, I sound condescending.

I need to learn to be more to the point. More to the point, more to the point. Clear about what I want. About what I want to ask. Two stakeholders have already told me this, and it embarrasses me.

It was really good to have been able to do interviews from the start of the semester; otherwise, I’d be worse off now.

They told me they would put me in contact with someone else and send me documents. Honestly, I feel culturally suspicious, is this just a polite way to dismiss me, or is it really going to happen? If they haven’t sent me anything in a couple of weeks, can I write to them again? Funny to see me this dubious about myself.

I see this like when I trained for debate: I have to focus on one small part and improve it.

In this case, it’s:

1. Learning how to do an informational interview.
2. Being precise and clear about what I want to ask, rehearsing more.
3. Doing more interventions to be clear on what I want.

It’s not easy to do this in another language, on a new topic, with a different culture.

In the end, as with everything in communication, it all comes down to preparing and rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. I didn’t rehearse.

I’d like to read all of these. Hoping to remember them, I’m posting them here.

1. How can the voices of ethnically marginalized communities be effectively supported to have greater  impact in London’s environmental and climate decision-making processes, in ways that respect their diversity?
2. How can debate skills be taught in a personalized, student-led way to indigenous and Afro-Colombian youth in classroom settings, ensuring the learning process is not standardized and that diverse cultural forms of argumentation are preserved without imposing a single dominant discourse style?
3. How can applied rhetoric skills be developed to historically marginalised communities?
4. How can applied rhetoric skills be developed through an educational tool to historically marginalised communities?
5. How can the training in applied rhetoric  be developed in a way that supports the agency of historically marginalized communities? 
6. How can the developing of applied rhetoric skills support the agency of historically marginalized communities in process of
7. How can applied rhetoric skills be developed in a way that supports the agency of historically marginalized communities in process of narrative change?
8. How can applied rhethoric skills be developed by historically marginalized communities to strength their agency in narrative change process?
9. How can the exercise in applied rhethoric skills strength human rights narrative change processes lead by historically marginalized communities
10. How can applied rhethoric education support historically marginalized communities that take part into human rights narrative change processes related with human rights?
11. How can applied rhetoric training strengthen the agency of historically marginalized communities in London*  to influence environmental narrative change processes? (or Colombia I don’t know yet)
12. How can the learning process of rhetorical skills be improved in a way that respects diversity and strengthens social agency of historically marginalized communities?
13. How can rhetorical skill development be improved to respect diversity and support the participation of historically marginalized communities in environmental narrative change processes?

Can rhetorical skills development support the participation of communities in narrative change? Because, honestly, I don’t know. Forcing the inclusion of “how can” at some point feels non-critical in my research. Just the exploration of whether these skills can improve participation is research itself.