Research Blog #9: Argument and Counter-Argument

In the beginning of my paper, I explain why living on campus is beneficial to students as opposed to commuting. This is done through the Student Involvement Theory and through research explaining how commuters have a lot more activities to juggle in their daily lives. However this is only half of the central argument to my paper. I seek to prove that social isolates living in residence halls on campus negate the benefits of on-campus living because of their lack of involvement in the community. I also make a point that living in a residence hall leads to involvement in the university, and this also helps to boost a students GPA and retention rates for colleges. However, one of my sources, College Residence and Academic Performance states "Consistent with this explanation, some evidence indicates that living on campus has no effect on study habits and is associated instead with more frequent participation in academically hazardous social activities, such as alcohol use (Pascarella et al., 1994; Valliant & Scanlan, 1996)" (Turley and Wodtke). This statement in some ways counteracts the benefits of living on-campus that I have previously found in my research. If students are involved in hazardous activities and instead lessen the quality of study habits, then not only do social isolates but regular students lose the benefits from living on-campus. This argument frames the issue in different terms because it points out that too much involvement and socialization in the residence hall leads to negative effects as well as if there was no involvement or interaction. Connecting this to other texts, in Paying for the Party, this act of partying instead of studying harder and getting involved with classes was called the party pathway. Though there is a relationship between the counter-argument and the party pathway, I feel like it is unnecessary to bring up the connection in my paper because the pathways are a different route than where I want to go with my overall argument.