With a preliminary idea of what I am writing about, I did a quick search on U of M's database search tools and found quite a few promising and recent articles. I am going to try to read through some of them tonight, switching to Russian when I get bored. I'm excited because this essay gives me extra motivation to finish In Defense of Food and start (and hopefully finish) The Omnivore's Dilemma; both by Michael Pollan.
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Here is another essay I would like to write: I would like to address why bad things still exist in the world.
Why does war still exist? Why do we still kill? Why do we judge and hate and lie and steal?
We do we not trust? Why do we not believe that just as I do not want to be cheated, I would not want to cheat another? Why, tell me why, can we not just live and let live?
I am seriously perplexed by this. I don't have the will to write about here at the moment, but maybe soon. I need the help of philosophers and historians and sociolgists and scientists and workers, but most of all I need people.
People, please tell me why.
R & D
The next step, according to The Craft of Research, is to look at my questions, throw out ones that can be easily looked up and answered, those that have no greater significance, and those that are purely speculative. They then suggest creating a three part statement that 1) names the topic, 2) includes an indirect question, and 3) answers the question, "so what?"
Here is my statement:
- I am researching the emergence and adoption of vegan diets* (historic and contemporary)…
- …because I want to find out how diet choices affect people, animals, and the planet…
- …in order to help my reader understand why people adopt vegan diets and lifestyles (which may help readers think about what influences their diet choices).
*It is worth noting that in talking about the history and relevance of vegan diets, I must also talk about vegetarian diets in general. It should be assumed hence forth that my use of the word vegan does not mean diets and lifestyles completely absent from animal products, but instead means diets (and sometimes lifestyles) that do not include animal flesh, and sometimes animal byproducts such as milk, eggs, cheese, butter, and honey. Because this is also sort of an essay about why I personally am vegan, I think I am going to focus on diets, but I can't promise non-diet animal products won't work their way in there.
In the essay, I want to address the following things: The emergence of a diet as a social construct rather than just something we happen to do, how diets have been incorporated as important agents in various capital industries (making the choice of what we eat much more complicated than it should be), the health and environmental impacts of vegan diets, the arguments for and against veganism (and maybe any other particular diet or lifestyle choice), and a general idea of how people change lifestyles (and why not many people seem to do it).
<!--Other questions this inspires: There are so many books about food and diet and health; why has very little changed over the past 30 years? Does the food industry and agribusiness really control what we eat? Can one really argue about lifestyle choices? Why are people offended by said arguments (what are the different reasons)? How and why do people adopt or change lifestyles in general? Can, or should, the choice of what we eat be based only on hunger and personal taste preference? I didn't actually want these questions to be hidden…You understand-->
I am still debating how broad I want this essay to be. I would like this to be the longest essay I have written to date. In fact, I almost require it to be long enough to constitute a table of contents, end notes, and indices just so I can practice using them with TeX.
Reference
Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Links
The Craft of Research (Google Books)
My reSearch for Treasure
I bought a book the other day titled The Craft of Research. I am not sure why, but I was definitely drawn to the book. Perhaps it was my desire to be successful in the academic world. Perhaps it was my way of feeling competent in Powell's. Perhaps it was a call to English and away from Biology. Who knows? What I do know for sure is that I wandered that store for a very long time looking for something to read while I rehydrated, and this is what my exhausted self decided on.
It turns out my choice was a good one. I decided earlier today that I wanted to write an essay on why I was vegan. Unfortunately, this is a generally uninteresting question; one I can answer in a few words: because I thought I could. So, to improve my chances of writing a decent essay, and to practice my writing skills for the future, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to apply the suggests of this book. It is rather convenient that I am in Part 2: Asking Questions Finding Answers | Chapter 3: From Topics to Questions. While I am on the topic of practicing things I am learning this summer, I would also like to add that this will be very good TeX/LaTeX practice. Hopefully, I will improve my LaTeX skills to be proficient enough to write an essay I paid money to write...er...for a class, I mean.
The details of my preliminary questioning / brainstorming is too banal and space consuming to post as a real post, so it instead gets buried and linked to. There are six categories, some of which have subcategories, with a total number of eleven ways to ask questions. My goal was to ask at least five questions for each way, giving a grand total of at least 55 answerable/reserachable questions.
Links
My Research Questions
History
Larger Developmental Context
- When/with whom was the first completely vegan diet?
- Why did animals invade diets?
- How did veganism as a social movement come about?
- Why do people choose to eat/live vegan?
- Is there a future for veganism? Will it become the new standard of living?
Internal History
- How has veganism developed over the years?
- When the terms vegan, vegetarian, lacto/ovo, etc. first occur?
- How has scientific knowledge contributed to diet modifications?
- How have vegan diets changed over the years?
- How have the reasons for living/eating vegan changed over the years?
Structure & Composition
Larger System
- How has the creation of veganism as a movement affect the food industry?
- How did the development of lactose tolerance and agriculture integrate animals into human lifestyles and diets?
- How does living/eating vegan affect the environment?
- How does living/eating vegan affect a person's social/community standing in different environments? Why?
- Why are the rates of veganism/vegatrianism higher in queers?
- What is the relationship between vegans and other demographics? (age, ethnicity, general health, location, upbringing, religion, world view, personality) Why?
Fit together as system
- How do vegans interact with each other?
- Do vegans relate closest with vegans who feel the same as they do?
- How do people's choices to be vegan affect their views of the vegan movement?
- What is the relationship of people who wear/live vegan, eat vegan, or do both? Why?
- Why are there issues like honey? What are the big contentious points of veganism?
Categorization
Groups
- What are the different types of vegan diets/lifestyles?
- Do the diets/lifestyles differ around the world?
- What are the different reasons for being vegan?
- Are vegans viewed (by vegans and/or non-vegans) as different depending on their reasons for becoming vegan? Is this a hieracrchy?
- How do vegans order themselves? Does age or number of years vegan play a role?
Compare & Contrast
- How do vegan lifestyles differ from non-vegan lifestyles?
- Are vegans more consious of non-vegan related surroundings than non-vegans?
- Just how much 'healthier' are strict vegans than lacto/ovo vegetarians and pescatarians?
- How is veganism as a social movement present in other countries/cultures? Why?
- How do strict vegans, lacto/ovos, and pescatarian's differ publicly?
- How do the ideas and lifestyles of vegans by choice and vegans by upbringing C&C?
+ > -
- Why is veganism NOT the norm?
- If veganism is so amazing and friendly, why is everyone NOT vegan?
- Why is it NOT a good idea to become vegan? (What are reasons NOT to become a vegan)
- How is a vegan lifestyle NOT beneficial to people/animals/the planet?
- How has living/eating vegan NOT benefited people (who have tried it)?
Speculation
New Context
- How would the social view/idea of veganism be different if it originally developed in the third world? What if it caught on in the third world today?
- How would veganism play a role in a perfect, liberal USA?
- How would veganism be viewed if the presidential family ate vegan?
- How would veganism as a lifestyle/diet be different if we kept different pets?
- How would vegnaism as a lifestyle/diet be different if agribusiness did not exist and the USA went back to small, family owned farms?
If it Never Existed...
- How would modern food culture be different?
- What would the argument against obesity and other diet related health issues look like without veganism/vegetarianism?
- How would food/diet culture be different?
- How would modern food science be different?
- Would the idea reemerge in the modern social/economic climate?
Sources*
Agree
Disagree
For this part, the book suggests looking at questions and ideas you agree and disagree with from sources. As I am just starting this project, I do not have many sources. I will leave these questions for the future.
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