Category: Research Narratives

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Research Narratives The Upper New Review

Escape Terrain

Mountain Goats

Genevieve Bennett

My sister Kate asked me once when we were on a survey together if I walk along yelling  “hey bear” so I wouldn’t walk right into any surprised bears, or if I am quiet, since the point is to  monitor wild animals. I said I used to yell a lot more than I do now, but don’t tell our mom. I laugh about that the next time I am going up early over Lincoln Pass..  

Walking up to the pass felt wonderful. The morning’s cold and I move fast. I don’t shout for bears. I don’t shout for bears. They wouldn’t have heard me above the wind and the little cold noisy streams running  out between big red shale boulders and green ferns. Tiny white alpine sandwort, purple cupped  harebells. Two million years of glaciation here have excavated long straight valleys you can look  down for miles without a break in the line of your sight. 

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Research Narratives The Upper New Review

“Four ‘-ologies’ of Inequality Research”

Four Circle Diagram (Image is in Public Domain. Free for editorial, educational, commercial, and/or personal projects. No attribution required)

Adam Hollowell and Kennedy Ruff

“I’m completely irritated at myself for spending a good part of the afternoon making this,” Katie Strom tweeted in August 2022, “But I’m also kind of proud of it.” Attached to the tweet was a meme explaining four technical terms in academic research – epistemology, ontology, methodology, and axiology – with pop culture images. Strom, professor of educational leadership at California State University, East Bay, made the image for her classes on research design for social justice.

We teach research design, too, as part of a summer program for high school students in Durham, North Carolina called the Aaron Young Scholars Research Institute. The program is offered in partnership with Durham Public Schools and the Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, where we work. High schoolers come to Duke’s campus each summer for intensive training in inequality studies, research methods, and academic writing.

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Nonfiction Research Narratives The Upper New Review

Connect-the-Dots

Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Photo Copyright Benjamin Erlandson. Used with permission.

Connect-the-Dots: Following the Unnatural Path of Water from the South San Juan Mountains to Albuquerque

By Stacy Boone

Growing up meant worm farms, roly-polies in a jar with dirt mined from the garden and smashed lightning bugs on my t-shirt as day wrestled with evening. I turned over rocks to find hidden crawdads in water drainages and hopped after toads accidentally kicked out of a molt of leaves. I was raised in an era when a child’s mode of travel was a bike and shoes were of the “tennis shoe” variety. I was left to wander in an Arkansas subdivision with no sidewalks but wood lots and forest that neighbored in safe proximity to lawns. I rarely strayed far from an oversized circle radius of seven or eight blocks. Well, maybe more if I thought I might not be caught. My friends and I made a point to check-in at whoever’s house was closest at lunch where we were fed and promptly pushed back outside with a gesture to, “Go Play.”

In the wild, I waded in creeks, scaled trees, rushed into high grasses and drank with scooped hands most any clear water source when thirsty. I scraped my knees. My legs bumped and itched with chigger bites. Bruised was an unworried part of play. Outside was education laid bare. Unwittingly, day-to-day outdoor activities were experiments of how the natural world worked. I researched before I understood the concepts that involved a created hypothesis or abidance to a system of methods. I examined without formality through a hands-on studied approach. Without the scientific methodology, I knew that tadpoles became frogs, water moved downstream and branch buds turned to leaves. Intuitively, I expected a repetition of nature’s routines.

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Calls For Submissions Research Narratives

Research Narrative Submissions Open

We are currently open for research narrative submissions at The Upper New Review.  We’re seeking out research narratives from people pursuing knowledge in any field, all over Earth.

What can you tell us about your research endeavors, using at least 3000 words?  We don’t have a maximum word count, so long as you’re concise, tell us as much as you’d like to tell us. 

Research Narrative Submissions Deadline: November 30, 2023

The closing deadline for this round of research narrative submissions is November 30.  Don’t wait!  Ready to submit?  You can submit your research narrative on our Submittable page.  (More information on formatting specifics is available there!)

Not sure what to submit?  Keep reading!

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