Research-Offshoring, Error-Free English Research = Expanding Boundaries?

Well, research and offshoring boundaries are certainly expanding.........Love them or hate them, u simply can't ignore them. Period.

All of the characters that Sarah Jones uses allow anyone who views the video to think about how we construct identity and character. Jones uses voice, body language, accents, and props to convey characters as diverse as a British woman and an old Jewish lady. Watching this video could be extremely useful for a multicultural education class. A teacher could use it to start a discussion on how we identify ourselves, as well as about stereotypes. What traits are "typical" of certain groups, and how can this be both a positive and a negative? What kind of groups, be they ethnic, religious, interest-based, or of another sort, do students identify with? Starting with this video would give a light-hearted introduction to a difficult topic, and perhaps allow students to access a challenging topic in a way that they can connect to personally but that also is non-threatening.

Discussion of what makes identity, how we choose to make our own identity and what is innate, and why all of this is important is challenging for students of any age, and one of the things that is needed in order to discuss this sort of thing is a safe space in which students can do some activities to understand themselves and then feel comfortable talking about them. One way to use this video presentation as an activity would be to have students keep track of which stereotypes (or identities) they laughed at, which they identified with, and why. (A pre-prepared worksheet would be useful for this process.) This would allow students to have first-hand examples of how people react to identity and identity building from their own ideas as the discussion goes forward. Ultimately, a video like Sarah Jones' is a great tool for a teacher of multi-cultural education, and teachers should not hesitate to use it.

How to Learn Good Academic Research and Error-Free English Writing?

Research is as old as humanity itself for the simple fact that humans are naturally inquisitive. In fact, this intrinsic trait is so valued that people spend years on end honing their ability to perform scientific inquisition in academic institutions. Research, or more colloquially inquiry, is part of human activity.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "research" as "investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, revision of accepted theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of such new or revised theories or laws". It follows that research is not static since it explores facts that are ever changing and as such, it must evolve as fast as its subject of examination.

The question is, therefore, can research be said to be "perfect", "absolute" and maybe even "complete". A natural conclusion would be "no", but this would be too simplistic an answer.

Sadly, life, in all its practicalities, is not ideal. Circumstances are constantly changing, events are different at any one point- in fact, an adult is considered successful; and mature only if he can reasonably deal with the constant changes in life.

The same is true of research. Both seeks to examine our assumptions, or lack of, and arrive at conclusions. Schwartz asserted "essay and research writing are immersion in the unknown" and that its purpose was "discoveries." It seeks to capture the truth and while the truth is a reflection of truth, the truth is consequently ever changing. In fact, research may more aptly be referred as an attempt at gaining objective knowledge of truth and reality. This is in no way to mean that research is not perfect-rather, it means that research, like everything around us, is not ideal, a rather significant difference.

The value of research is both in the merit of in its investigation procedure and the use of its applicability. That is how it is assessed. The word perfect is rarely used, if ever, to describe research or its findings. The single biggest principle used to judge the quality of any research is validity, that is, the quality of the various conclusions reached. Other criteria include reliability, credibility, transferability and trustworthiness- these are the most desirable qualities. The word perfect is ominously missing.

The European Commission's Expert Group on Assessment of University-Based Research is quick to warn that "there is no single set of indicators capable of capturing the complexity of essay writing and research assessment. There is no such thing as a perfect indicator...". It would be safe to conclude, therefore, that good enough may be the new perfect-assessing research in the context of this world requires us to be alive to the fact that we cannot expect criteria that demands the ultimate best as this would be unachievable.

Like I opined earlier, the value of research is in their applicability. In fact, this is what Morwenna Griffiths was arguing when she made the statement that there is no hope in doing perfect research. She hoped to make a case for research to, instead of focusing on perfecting the art and science of research process, that we should devote more to make research work towards justice, fairness and, my personal favorite, equity.

Is it possible to do anything perfect? Of course not, but that doesn't mean we cannot derive we should devote ourselves to perfection. In fact, some of the most important discoveries of our time have been made entirely by accident. Like Alexander Fleming with penicillin, Dmitri Mendeleev with the Periodic Table and Isaac Newton with gravity, to name but just a few. The obsession with perfect research is a complete distraction from the purpose of research-creating impact.

Let's face it. There are some people who are just born researchers and there are some people who can't string 2 sentences together to make a coherent statement. I believe that a researcher is born, not created. If one has a love for reading , is observant and an imaginative eye, then it won't take much for that person to become a researcher. However, that is not to say that the researcher will be a good writer. I speak of course of the writers for hire from out of the Third World countries who, try as they will, can't really live up to the research quality and writing styles of native English speakers who carry the aforementioned qualities.