Djenanway Se-Gahon, Aidan Mahony, Sabrina Aspiras

April 24, 2016

Professor Cruz
Engl 16
BEAM
In Joseph Bizups article BEAM, Bizup asserts that professors should utilize a more
rhetorical perspective in categorizing materials in research-based writing. Bizup rejects the
labeling of of primary, secondary and tertiary sources, replacing them with Background: the
contextualizing information; Exhibit: the materials to be interpreted; Argument: engagement with
the chosen information and, Method: materials from which a writer takes a governing concept
or derives a manner of working. (Bizup 72).

Bizup begins by drawing on the differing ideas concerning how research-based writing
should be taught. Some scholars and teachers focus on the social contexts in which writing
occurs, while others focus less on the retrieval of what already exists, but on examination and
analysis (Bizup 72). Some celebrate the research essay, like Bruce Ballenger, and some, like
Richard L. Larson condemn it.
Bizup describes what Kenneth Burke calls the paradox of substance in emphasizing the
difficulty of incorporating research, information, and text of another author/source into our own
writing. The writer must understand chosen materials as essential to their text but also as
elements that function outside the text that is being created (73).
Bizup continues on to argue that the way we categorize sources into primary, secondary,
and tertiary, is antirhetorical (73). They are no longer sources categorized based on their

rhetorical functions but to relationships outside of rhetoric. The nomenclature not only impacts
our understanding of a sources priority, as Bizup explains the competing definitions of a
Primary Source document, but, we also miss the key point that these definitions are relative.
By shifting focus, a person writing a paper might shift the category in which a document is
typically classified, i.e. from a primary source to a secondary source.
Bizup complicates the idea of nomenclature in pointing out that writers and researchers
belong to discipline-based communities that also have unique classifications. Sources in one area
of study may be considered secondary to where they are typically understood as being primary.
What a student understood to be a hard-and fast classification becomes more ambiguous and
subjective. Lastly, Bizup mentions a nomenclature-based hierarchy, where it benefits some
disciplines to categorize materials in the ways they would like them to be categorized.

An Alternative Vocabulary that Emphasizes Use

Bizup argues that if we want our students to understand research rhetorically, then we
must use language that emphasizes how we will use a source as opposed to categorizing based on
an external point of reference (76). Our categories should no longer be primary tertiary and
secondary, but should describe how the materials will be used in writing. Bizups categories, as
described above, are Background, Exhibits, Arguments, and Methods (BEAM). Background
sources include facts and common knowledge, contextualizing the subject of research. Exhibit
sources include materials a writer may use for analyzing and interpreting: an example used to
elucidate an assertion. Rhetorical work must be done in order to draw significance from an
exhibit. Argument Sources are sources that a writer engages with by rejecting, accepting, or
expanding upon them in some way. Finally, a Method Source is one in which a student derives a

governing concept or a manner of working. Bizup offers the example of, a set of key terms, a
procedure, or creating a general model. This does not need to be cited, like some background
information (Bizup 76).
While the nomenclature differs, the descriptive categories of BEAM do correspond to the
existing categories: tertiary sources are often used for background, primary sources correspond
to exhibits and secondary sources complicate arguments and engage with materials. The benefit
of this model, Bizup argues, is that students can understand their sources as they relate to their
function in a research-based paper.
Finally, Bizup states that the BEAM approach is more universal, in its flexibility, it can
cross disciplines even in arenas in which researchers don't describe materials as sources (ex.
Scientific disciplines), and because the categories overlap (76).
BEAM as a Framework for Reading
Here, Bizup examines different reading assignments (The Achievement of Desire by
Richard Rodriguez, American Freedom in the Global Age by Eric Foner, and Transgenic
Pollen Harms Monarch Larvae by John E. Losey, Linda S. Rayor, and Maureen E. Carter) and
how students have utilized BEAM to analyze them.
For The Achievement of Desire, Bizup illustrates how Rodriguez used an outside
source (Hoggarts) as an argumentative point from which to tell his own stories. Rodriguez
personal experiences, juxtaposed with Hoggarts points about a scholarship boy, were the
exhibits (Bizup 77). BEAM, according to Bizup, is therefore inherent in Rodriguezs argument
and students studying The Achievement of Desire could easily use BEAM to reach a similar
interpretation to Bizups.

Regarding Foners article, Bizup discusses how, in his own work as an educator, he asks
students to label Foners article with B (background), E (exhibit), A (argument), or M
(method). Again, Bizup works to convince his audience that using BEAM will help others come
to the same conclusions regarding certain works of scholarship as he does: Once students
recognize the serial structure of Foners argument, they also notice that he modifies his posture
toward his sources as his argument progresses...they notice that as his exhibits become more
contemporary, he begins to treat them more like arguments (78). In this sense, Bizup leads his
audience to believe that there is a correct interpretation of a text inherent in its structure, and this
truth nugget buried within it has only yet to be discovered with the pick-ax that is BEAM.
The last article (Transgenic Pollen Harms Monarch Larvae, which expresses research
on the genetic material of plants, pollen, and larvae) uses many notes and cites other research -and Bizup most wants his students to pay attention to the authors usage and framing of these
sources. This, he says, most clearly isolates the authors arguments (again, the A in BEAM)
and makes them more subject to analysis and critique.
BEAM as a Framework for Writing
The BEAM approach is just as useful for critical reading as it is for writing. Bizup argues
that students are lead to believe that the more sources and the more variety they use in their
writing are more important than how well they use them in their texts (Bizup 81). In other
words, this means that students are led to value quantity over quality when it comes to writing,
while BEAM on the other hand, helps students focus on how the source helps their argument.
The BEAM method is a bottom-up approach that inherently gives students more
opportunities to pursue topics that they think are interesting as well. The inductive way of
approaching research topics means that students are often pursuing the unexpected lines of

inquiry that emerge from their encounters with concrete sources (Bizup 81). This means that
students can add something new to the argument by finding sources while the traditional
approach to gathering research sources means that students are more likely to repeat prior
arguments instead of adding to one or coming up with their own.
BEAM Contribution
The introduction of BEAM in reading and writing raises some questions. Most notably,
how do we teach research-based writing to students that gives them the best opportunity for
growth? While Larson writes that students need to learn which sources to use for the writing
process, Bizup argues that he ultimately fails to separately identify the teaching of research and
the teaching of writing. Bizup also argues that