Research The Easy Way
Yes, you can. Yes, it matters.
You live in the "Information Age,"
which is another way of saying "more lies, faster than ever before."
To solve problems, you need good information.
A high school graduate should know the difference between good information and bad information.
One
strategy for good information is to use trustworthy sources. Keep track of where each piece of information comes from, so if a mistake is found, it can be corrected.
The Process
1. Pick a problem worth solving. Write it as a specific "research question."
2. Use keywords from your research question to find answers in InfoTrac. NO GOOGLE!!! InfoTrac ONLY. From home: where it asks for library card #, enter discovery.
3. When you find each part of an answer in an article, copy its source citation and fact/s into your eCards. SAVE this document after every paste. Print or BACKUP daily.
4. As you learn more about your topic, continue narrowing and focusing your question. It is actually EASIER to write about "How can we help land mine victims in Afghanistan?" than just "land mines."
5. When you have the required number of notes and sources, AND when you have enough information to answer your research question, SAVE your eCards and prepare to write the paper.
6. Organize your ideas with subtopics (on eCards), and organize the subtopics into an outline.
7. Prepare your bibliography AND "shorthand" citations using a two-column table by copy+pasting each source (complete citation) in alphabetical order. Save for reference. For final bibliography, remove the shorthands, change table to text, and format with hanging indents. Save.
8. Write a thesis (a one-sentence answer to your research question). Start your draft with thesis.
9. Organize the facts for your paper. Make a complete backup of all your eCards before proceeding, in case you have a problem with the sort! Sort the eCards by subtopic WHILE KEEPING THE NOTES ACCURATELY LINKED TO THEIR SOURCE!! Save under a new name (e.g. SortBySubtopic).
10. Draft the body of your paper by copy/pasting from your sorted grid into properly grouped paragraphs. Put "" around all direct quotes AND enter the parenthetical citations (first part of each bib entry) at the end of each paste. End draft with a restatement of your thesis.
11. Paraphrase and summarize direct quotes, while keeping the citations in place and removing “” where the wording is your own. KEEP CITATIONS IN PLACE!!
12. Write introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
13. Rewrite ALL to develop flow and clarity of ideas. Write transition sentences to connect body paragraphs. KEEP CITATIONS IN PLACE!
14. Prepare final manuscript. This will include:
Title Page
Outline (with thesis statement)
Body (double-spaced WITH parenthetical documentation AND all direct quotes shown in "")
Bibliography (alphabetized: all citations must link directly with one and only one bibliography entry)
15. Be certain you have avoided ALL forms of plagiarism:
You did not use a source's IDEAS without giving credit through parenthetical documentation.
You did not use a source's WORDS without giving credit through quotation marks "" and parenthetical documentation.
16. Print, assemble manuscript, and proofread CLOSELY to remove all possible errors.
17. Have papers ready to turn in at the start of class Tuesday, 1/19/10.
VALUABLE RESOURCES
Purdue University Writing Lab
Sample Research Paper #1 (with formatting)
Sample Research Paper #2 (with formatting)