Reverse Persuasion
When I was growing up, my parents always told me “don’t knock it until you have tried it”, meaning do not criticize something until you have tried it. Three classes I have taken have helped me understand that and carry it into my research.
In Rhetoric and Composition (ENGL 102), I had to write a persuasive essay on any topic; I chose to write about why you should not support the anti-vaccination movement. It was a reasonable paper, but I had no rebuttal and I did not clearly understand the other side. I should have considered alternative beliefs and try to understand why they believe vaccines are harming to us. The following semester, I took Public Communications (SPCH 140). My professor gave me an assignment that I was excited about: a persuasive speech that could be anything with a few exceptions. I chose to speak on why you should support a women’s clinic. I decided on this topic because I care about that topic and I wanted to bring awareness to how you can help women’s clinics. After I gave my speech, my professor announced we would be giving a reverse persuasive speech. This meant that I had to give a speech on why you should not support a women’s clinic. This was very hard for me to research because I did not understand why supporting a women’s clinic would be condemned. I realized that in order to understand where these people are coming from, I needed to understand the opposing argument. I did this by going on conservative websites and searching until I saw information on banning abortion. What I found a lot was misinformation about women’s clinics. After reading through the website and finding valid information, I wrote and spoke a good speech with no bias in it. Looking back on both of these experiences, I can see how the framework of reverse persuasion is clearly related to open mindedness, which is important to research.
Another experience that contributed to my open mindedness was when I took Introduction to the Civilization of the Islamic Middle East (HIST 104). I took this class first semester freshman year (fall 2018). It was such an interesting class because almost all the information was new and enticing to me. The class consisted of my professor, two other students and me. I wondered why all the other history classes were full, but this one only had three people in it. I came to the conclusion that since this history class was not familiar, like U.S. History or European History, people were apprehensive towards it. Maybe they were nervous that the workload would have been too much on top of their other classes and taking a history where they have some background knowledge would have been easier for them. In this class, I wrote a paper about how successful Baghdad was because of Al-Mamun, a ruler in the Middle East who built his kingdom around education. While writing this paper, I had to keep my mind very open because I was starting to see that a lot of ideas we think came from Europe, actually came from the Middle East, such as the Earth being round.
These three classes helped me with my research because they taught me to be openminded with everything I do. Most people my age would find bird watching very boring and uninteresting, but for me, I did not think that way. I saw it as an opportunity to do something new. To collect the data, I sat out near the birds on the Lake Wylie dam access point in Fort Mill, South Carolina. I watched a bird for a 15-30 minute time span and counted how many fish they foraged. If they swallow one, it counts as a kill. If they get a fish and drop it or stab at it, it counts as an attempted. Most of the time, my data resulted in a line of zeros. At first, it was frustrating because I wanted to see high numbers in my data. It took me a couple observations to understand that I needed to be open and okay with all the zeros I got because a zero is still data we can use.
For my research with the hydrosols and essential oils, my preliminary results indicated that the tea tree and lavender 100% essential oils have antimicrobial properties while everything else did not. Looking at the results from my first trial, I was disappointed that the lavender hydrosol did not show any signs of having antimicrobial properties. I had to remember to keep an open mind and understand that those results still show me something.
In fall 2019, I attended a Careers in Science lecture held by the Chemistry Club. The speaker was one of our chemistry professors talking about her path to where she is today. She explained why she switched majors and talked about her research as well. She talked about how important it is to do research and the good things about it. It reminded me to keep an open mind when being approached with research opportunities. Within that same week, my chemistry and biology professors approached me to ask if I wanted to take their research class (BIOL 399). I remembered back to the lecture and decided to take the opportunity. I am really thankful for that experience because without it, I would not be where I am today.
