With a focus on the history of communication, I found it ironic that Ethan R. Plaut’s Week 2 presentation failed to clearly communicate the purpose of such a vast chronicle. Plaut began by alluding to the scattered relationship of the content explored by his research: “When being interdisciplinary, you need to be clear where your expertise is.”. Content varying from building materials within the 1807 Capitol building to the privatisation of quiet by acousticians functioned to engross the audience. However, I was unsure how meaningful hypotheses and outcomes could be explored using such unfocused content. Investigation proved that bodies of research should actively avoid ambiguity of purpose and topic, allowing for precise identification of a work’s purpose by a reader (Phillips & Pugh, 2010).

While greater presentation length may have left Plaut’s diverse range of stories feeling more cohesive, I also felt his presentation failed to elaborate on any research development methods relevant to the Arts Scholars course. Rather than research skills, inquiries from the cohort themselves mostly related to communications history, surveillance monopolies, and data privacy. Plaut aptly and avidly supplied a wide variety of points with which to explore the topics in question. However, doing so did not offer the class any insight into how we could attain such information, nor how such knowledge could be applied in a research setting.

One aspect of Plaut’s research processes from which I gleaned insight was its localization. His focus on the communication dynamics of Haast, for example, was well situated within a New Zealand context. Further research explains that 21^st century research often lacks localization which reflects precisely on a single community’s social and intellectual values, eliminating the capacity for culture-specific insights (Crossley & Broadfoot, 1992). I will thus take care to emulate Plaut in making sure my researched conclusions do not make extrapolations extending beyond the scope of the communities I explore in my studies.