Possesives and Craft of Research

1- Sons-in-law’s homes
2- Arkansas’ rivers
3- Jim’s and Joan’s house
4- Ph.D.s’ research
5- McGraw-Hill, Inc.’s advertising
6- Fred the electrician’s estimate
7- Anyone else’s idea
8- Witnesses’ depositions
9- The airport’s upper level
10- One of my friends’ daughter


1- The tree surgeon could not save the white spruce’s limb.
2- The User’s manual for the new software package, was so confusing that most consumers returned it to the company.
3- Windows’ intuitive commands make it easy for users to move from one application to another.
4- I will be in Hawaii for Mother’s Day, in New Mexico on April Fool’s day, and in California on Veteran’s Day.
5- Grover Cleveland was the people’s choice.
6- Each participant filled out the Reader’s Comment Form.
7- Now that he has his bachelor’s degree, he plans to get his master’s, and possibly his doctorate.
8- The National Secretaries’ Conference will be held in Houston this year.
9- For appearance’s sake, the feuding vice presidents kept their differences to themselves during the monthly staff meeting.
10- My brother’s-in-law idea was to have the family reunion at a spa.
11- We have been invited to a holiday party at the Roth’s.
12- The telephone company’s president’s idea was to offer discount rates to seniors.


Craft of Research

One of the points that I liked in The Craft of Research, was that writting an argument is very similar to having an everyday conversation. To illustrate this, Booth shows how in a conversation with someone we often times make claims and support those claims with evidence, then respond to the questions posed by the other. This is how to write an argument, only we have to play both sides 0f the conversation. Booth asserts that we need to state our claim, support it, then anticipate the readers doubts or questions and respond to them.
Another point made in The Craft of Research is the explaination of "warrents" These are general ideas that are accepted by the public as truth and support or explain your claim. These are needed in an argument sometimes to connect your reasoning and evidence to your claim. Booth cautions that a writer must only include warrents when they are neccesary, relevent, and generally accepted.
The last point I will summerize is that of the idea that reasons used to support a claim can actually turn into claims themselves. Booth says that it is important to watch what claims you are making even if they are reasons, to ensure that you give evidence and reasons to support each claim that you make. Booth also makes the distiction between reasons and evidence, which is concrete data, not an opinion or idea. It is important that we use both reasons and evidence to support our claims.

One of the areas addressed by Booth that could help my own research methods is the first point I summarized. I feel like when I research I forget that I need to treat my paper as if I was entering a conversation with my readers. The one thing that I tend to leave out is the answering of anticipated responses. I think that I usually get caught up so much in my own position that I forget to acknowledge other positions and respond to them. I liked the idea of Booth to pretend as if your paper is a conversation with another person, and to anticipate the questions of the other person.