I like the idea of identifying myself as a potential “spoiler”, though — and I’ve often described research as solving mysteries.

The gaming example that Abrams recounts in the Wired piece is one that I’ve been thinking on for a while. Of course we can’t assume that all college students like and play video games, but for those that do, how can we tap into that experience of research and discovery that’s built into so many current video games?

I also wonder whether students take the shortest route possible more often for subjects/topics that are less interesting to them (though I haven’t researched this myself). Recently a faculty member suggested as much to me and told me that she always allows students to choose their own topics (within her discipline). The assignment may still be recovery and summary, but maybe the student’s interest in the subject could help minimize the desire for spoilers?

When I’m instructing students, I try to present my instruction as though I’m empowering the students to do it themselves. In my experience, students like to feel empowered. I know they will still come ask me for assistance (as a spoiler or a cheat) on a different topic, and I remind them that they are empowered by letting them show me how to do the search.

Students are not professors- or librarians-in-training. And nor do we always love the process. When I want to find out the biggest city in Chad, I just want the information. And that’s okay.

See, a lot of the most spoiler-happy people I know work SO HARD at it. For them, it’s not a matter of skipping ahead so much as wringing every little bit of narrative out of the story. And there’s research too! With shows like Lost, that include that narrative at so many levels – that provide so much stuff to figure out – are the best shows for those people. There’s a media scholar at Middlebury named Jason Mittell who has written some really interesting things about spoilers and Lost in particular and this idea of a narrative that is almost co-created between the show people and the fan people – the idea that media is not simply for consumption – is a big part of what I took away from one of his articles — this one – http://www.participations.org/Volume%204/Issue%201/4_01_graymittell.htm

But this isn’t just a tangent! I wonder if, just like there is one parallel to student researchers mentioned in the post, there might be another along these lines. When we teach research, especially that deep, exciting, life changing type of research that you describe so well, isn’t what we’re talking about something that can’t just be consumed? but a learning that is also co-created between the texts & sources, teachers, and students? Maybe there’s a parallel between creative types like Abrams, who create a narrative that invites audience participation, and what teachers can do. I have no idea what that would look like, but I think I’ll continue thinking on that question today. Thanks!

And by the way, I’ve seen the same misconception for over twenty years so I don’t think it’s generational. So much of what is called research at the undergraduate level is actually “going through the steps of finding out what people already know and depositing it in my briefcase in suitably formal language that erases any clue that you were personally involved.” When faculty assign papers, they very often don’t stop to consider that what they’re actually asking for is reports or arguments – which involves finding and using sources, but isn’t discovery, just recovery and summary.