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Hi, I'm JD. I'm one of the instructors here at Texas A&M University Commerce
and I'm here to talk to you a little bit more about Burkean Parlor. Something you've probably
just read about, or are about to read about in English 1301.
The idea of the Burkean Parlor is a metaphor for
research. It's there for you to have a little
pressure taken off your shoulders when you start to do the research for any of your
essays in this class. A lot of student come in and feel like they have to
say everything that has ever been said or needs to be said
about the subject of their essay, and that's absolutely not true.
The truth of the Burkean Parlor is that you're
research is only a part of an ongoing conversation that
is going to be going on before you jump into it, and it's going
to go on way after you leave the conversation.
Our job, when we walk into the Burkean Parlor, is to first listen.
When we walk into the parlor, the metaphorical parlor, or if we
think about it as a group of our friends, gathered together. We're talking about a game
that just happened, and maybe we want
to say something about the game too, cause we just watched that game.
But, we have to wait. We have to step back and listen to what
their talking about, because they might have covered what we already wanted to say.
So, if we wait just a moment and listen to what the conversation is,
and then jump in and say "Oh yeah! I really liked that too!"
That's exactly what we do with our essays. Now think about it, if I didn't
listen to what was going on and I just kind of walked in, and their talking about
the game and I just jump in and start talking about
a game that their talking about, player their not talking about, or place
they have already covered. These are things that do happen to
students when they do essay writing and they don't do any research
and it doesn't take much research for you to find where the conversation is
and to jump right in. Now, as soon as you jump into the conversation,
your job is to contribute. You're not just going to just mock
or say what has been said before you, but maybe your contribute
by saying if you agree or disagree with what has been said before you.
Again, let's talk about that game. Your friends are talking about how great that
game was, and so you listen to it, and you maybe jump in and
say, "I disagree, I think that there was a better game last year.
Or you say, you know, I really do agree, but the reasons why I liked
are not really the reasons that your saying that it was great. That's also a contribution.
Eventually you're going to get tired, and then you're going to have to leave.
That just means that your turning in your paper. You have a time limit on your paper.
That you have to turn in your paper and you have to leave. At the end of your paper
you leave a conclusion that keeps it open, makes sure that the conversation
can keep on going. So when you leave, the conversation is going to keep on going and
maybe if you're lucky, people will start quoting you and start talking about
the ideas that you had. So again, the Burkean Parlor is just
a way for us to understand that the pressure isn't on
for you to say everything that has ever been said about a subject. Or
everything that ever will be said about that subject. That should take the pressure off
and make you really enjoy writing, because you're just a
part of a longer conversation. I'll talk to you next time.