Weeks 1 & 2 Writing a Research Paper

Weeks 1 & 2 Writing a Research Paper

Picking a topic, research, annotated bibliography

Topic

Pick a topic you are interested in, but you are not emotionally invested. To write a successful research paper one has to remain unbiased even though the paper explores one side of the argument more.

How do I start?

Once you've picked at least two topics, think of a point you want to explore.

Example Topic ~Teaching to ability, not age

Once you pick your topic, think of a question you want to explore~

What are the advantages to classifying students by ability, not age?

What next?

Once you have your question, think of at least three ways to answer it.

What are the advantages to classifying students by ability, not age?

1) Students are able to foster and grow in the subject areas they excel in.

2) Students remain engaged and are less likely to be bored or have behavioral issues.

3) Students are able to work with school staff to make their learning more personalized.

Now what?

Well, you have three sub-topics to research. These topics can change or adapt as you research and write, you may even find more topics, but you have direction. By turning your thesis essentially into a question and figuring out how to outline your paper, it will make researching a lot easier.

Ready to research? This is what OWL says...

There are two types of evidence.

First-hand research is research you have conducted yourself such as interviews, experiments, surveys, or personal experience and anecdotes.

Second-hand research is research you are getting from various texts that have been supplied and compiled by others such as books, periodicals, and Web sites.

Regardless of what type of sources you use, they must be credible. In other words, your sources must be reliable, accurate, and trustworthy.

How do I know if a source is credible?

• Who is the author? Credible sources are written by authors respected in their fields of study. Responsible, credible authors will cite their sources so that you can check the accuracy of and support for what they've written. (This is also a good way to find more sources for your own research.)

• How recent is the source? The choice to seek recent sources depends on your topic. While sources on the American Civil War may be decades old and still contain accurate information, sources on information technologies, or other areas that are experiencing rapid changes, need to be much more current.

• What is the author's purpose? When deciding which sources to use, you should take the purpose or point of view of the author into consideration. Is the author presenting a neutral, objective view of a topic? Or is the author advocating one specific view of a topic? Who is funding the research or writing of this source? A source written from a particular point of view may be credible; however, you need to be careful that your sources don't limit your coverage of a topic to one side of a debate.

• What type of sources does your audience value? If you are writing for a professional or academic audience, they may value peer-reviewed journals as the most credible sources of information. If you are writing for a group of residents in your hometown, they might be more comfortable with mainstream sources, such as Time or Newsweek. A younger audience may be more accepting of information found on the Internet than an older audience might be.

• Be especially careful when evaluating Internet sources! Never use Web sites where an author cannot be determined, unless the site is associated with a reputable institution such as a respected university, a credible media outlet, government program or department, or well-known non-governmental organizations. Beware of using sites like Wikipedia, which are collaboratively developed by users. Because anyone can add or change content, the validity of information on such sites may not meet the standards for academic research.

Why is an annotated bib important?

An annotated bibliography provides information about each source you have used; one of the reasons behind citing sources and compiling a general bibliography is so that you can prove you have done some valid research to back up your argument and claims. Annotated bibliographies include additional details that provide an overview of the sources themselves.

https://guides.lib.uw.edu/c.php?g=345680&p=2331777

• Each annotation provides essential details about a source. Readers, researchers, or instructors reading an annotated bibliography will get a snapshot of the important details that they need to know about each source. As a researcher, you have become an expert on your topic: you have the ability to explain the content of your sources, assess their usefulness, and share this information with others who may be less familiar with them.

• Some types of annotations provide details about what the paper's author has done with or thinks about each source. Certain types of annotations (Evaluative Annotations, for example) may provide a brief analysis of the source by the paper's author, including details about what information is most important or not, how it the source fits into the broader scope of the paper and why it may or may not be useful to others