Blog 8: Filtering Through Information

Hi everyone! This week, I focused on finishing and finalizing Part 2 of my progressive outline for review. As mentioned last week, a lot of the notes I took and highlights I made during my readings contained important and interesting information, however a lot of it is not directly answering my research questions. 

Going into my project, I knew I was going to be encountering a lot of information and a lot of moving parts about our society, autism, and neurodiversity. Everything is so complex, and there is not one root reason or ideology that can be identified as the sole cause of such distaste of those who are not “normal” or conforming to the norm. It is influenced by many, many different reasons and I decided to focus only on three main ones that stood out to me. 

In the beginning of the week, I felt overwhelmed by what I wanted to include in my project; I added many more topics to my outline that I did not have in Part 1, and though I said I would filter through information last week, I still added quite a lot of notes that may or may not be relevant to my questions. After meeting with Mr. Betcher, we decided that before I move on to Part 3 of my progressive outline—where I start cutting down evidence I don’t need and actually synthesizing evidence together—I should write my responses to each of my questions. By doing this, I can clarify what notes and evidence is substantial to my project and what is not by seeing if the evidence is relevant to the answers I give to each question. 

I wrapped up this week by reflecting on my answers to the project and my own experiences in volunteering. As next week rolls around, I’m going to start synthesizing my sources together and cutting down on information I don’t need. By the end of the week, I aim to start working on a draft of my final paper. 

Thank you for reading, and until next week!