Preparing a
Research
 Paper --
The LRC Briefing 

 
 
 
 
 

 

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Rev. 9-06

 


 

 

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                                           Introduction

 

Research is the process of acquiring enough

information to support a stated conclusion. 

 

In the process of acquiring information on your subject you will learn to compile the findings of other writers and combine them to demonstrate how and why you arrive at your conclusion.  This process is much more than writing a personal opinion essay, reading one book or article on a subject and reporting its contents, or stringing together a collection of quotations from various writers.

 

Writing a research paper requires effort and time, but carefully following the steps presented here will allow you to do it well.  It is very important that you do each step systematically.  None should be omitted since the next step depends on the successful accomplishment of each.

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The following is a countdown, an idea of how many weeks it takes, start to finish, to produce a paper. It is assumed that you have more than one class and cannot devote your hours solely to this one assignment.

             

            Week 1 Chose a subject and begin gathering research, making a works cited card for each source be it book, magazine, encyclopedia or internet article.

            Week 2 Skim the articles you found, discard unusable sources, gather more articles if needed; devise thesis statement and make an outline.

            Week 3  Re-read your sources, making  notes on index cards as you read, re-work outline if new ideas arise.

            Week 4  Read. Put notes in order, make a rough draft of the paper.

            Week 5  Type the paper and works cited; proofread.

 

The most important preparation is allowing plenty of time. Writing at the last minute never produces a good paper.

 

                                                           

 

 

 

Step 1:  Choosing a Subject (Week 1)

 

There are three basic points to remember when choosing a subject:

Text Box: 3(1) The subject should interest you. Since thorough research may take several weeks to complete, the task will be easier if you have a general interest in your subject.  Documenting what you already know is difficult. 

It might be best to work on a subject you know little about, but which will hold your attention and your interest.

 

(2) It must be something you can explain to anyone. A topic such as "The Evolution of Zeus in the Plays of Aeschylus" may be fine written by a specialist in religion and drama and read by specialists in the fields.  Stay away from a topic which is beyond your full understanding or one you will have trouble making clear to the non-specialized reader.

 

(3) There must be enough material available to research it. A topic on a very current interest may yield no research materials except a few newspaper or magazine articles.  A topic such as "Queen Victoria" is also a mistake in choice because, in most cases, authoritative biographies have been written about major historical figures.  All you can possibly do is summarize, and summarization is not research.  For this reason alone, you should shy away from historical biographies. 

 

Keeping the three basic points in mind, you can choose your topic from many different sources.  Did a television program bring up a topic that interests you?  Perhaps a general bull session with friends suggested a topic of interest that you would like to know more about.  A conversation with your instructor or counselor might also be helpful.  The sources for topics are endless, and these examples represent just a few.

 

After a topic has been chosen, you are ready to begin your research. Have a supply of 4 x 5 index cards on hand.

 

         Step II:  Preliminary Search (Week 1 Continued)

 

The next step is to acquire a general overview of your subject, find out what the library has on it, and start looking for the special aspect of the topic on which you will concentrate. Give yourself at least a week to gather sources; it takes time to find books on the on-line library catalog and retrieve them from the shelves, search periodical (magazine) indexes and locate the magazines, make photocopies, and browse the Internet. You may also need to request material via an interlibrary loan if the library doesn’t have the periodical or book you want. Loans usually take two days. Also, you may find after skimming your books and magazines that they are not suitable and you will need to return to the library for more resources. With searching, reading, and weeding articles, a week spent in gathering sources is reasonable.

 

At this point you begin using an important research technique which will save much time and will greatly affect the success of your paper:  You prepare a “work cited card” for each source consulted.

 

A work cited card for a book, encyclopedia, magazine or electron source may look like this:

 

Work cited card for a book:

Latham, David. Crazy Sundays: F.

Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood.

New York: The Viking Press, 1970.

 
                                                                                 Author’s Name

                                                                            

                                                                                     Title

                                                                                 Publication Date

 


                                                                                 Publisher

 

 

                                                                           Place of Publication

You may add the call number to help you relocate a book later, and if only part of the book is consulted, list the page numbers. Write all of the information (author, publisher, date, volume, internet address, etc) found when you searched the on-line catalog, indexes, or electronic sources and found entries because you will need it when you do a works cited page.

 

Work cited card for an encyclopedia:

Fairchild, Johnson E. “Alaska.”

Colliers Encyclopedia, 1960. I,

332-342.

 

               

                       

 
 


                                                                                  Title

                                                                                   Volume number

                                                                                     Author

 

                                                                             Encyclopedia Title

                                                                                       Pages

 

Work cited card for a magazine:                                        Author

                     

Breslin, Catherine. “Waking up from the Dream of Women’s Lib.” New York, VI (Febuary 26, 1973), 30-38.

                  

 
                         

                                                                                       Title of Article

                                                                                 Date

 


                                                                                   Volume number

                                                                               Name of Magazine

                                                                                   Pages

 

 

 

Work cited card for an online journal

Palfrey, Andrew. “Choice of Mates in Identical Twins.” Modern Psychology 4.1 (1996): 12 pars. 25 Feb. 2000 http://www.liasu.edu/modpsy/palfrey4(1).htm.

 
                                                                                         Author

                                                                                     Title of Article

                                                                          

                                                                               Journal, Volume,

                                                                                       Issue, Date

 

                                                                                Date you consulted

                                                                                            source

                                                                                Address

 

The advantages of making works cited cards as you first consult library materials are: (1) time and effort saved when you decide to use the material but can’t remember where you found it, (2) you can refer briefly to the source without repeating the full information as you make notes on your reading, and (3) you can simply copy the cards to compile your final works cited.  Any card for a source you decide not to use may be discarded.

 

Text Box:  As you look for your background information, begin gathering ideas on which subject headings you will use in the on-line catalog and periodical indexes.  The process of finding the subject in the encyclopedia should give you some clues.  Also, check the bibliography following the encyclopedia articles as it may give you the lead to some specific books.  The next thing to do is find out how much material the library has on your topic.

 

 

 

At this point you decide, is my subject of recent current interest that would be written about only in magazines?  Has it been around long enough that books as well as periodical articles have been published about it?  Or is it so old that I would find it only in books?  The witch trials in Salem, for instance, occurred in 1692, and it is unlikely they would be the subject of magazine articles.  Other topics such as a newly elected president or a new government policy would appear only in current periodicals.  Some subjects that have been around a while, ecology for instance, could be found in both books and magazines.

 

Check the on-line catalog, periodical indexes, or the Internet to find material on your subject.  If it is not listed in any way you can think of, either there is not enough material in the library or you need help from the librarian.  When you find the subject has many subdivisions listed, you have selected too broad a topic.  A long list of "see also" references in either place will indicate, too, that your subject is too broad.  Restricting your subject to a topic you can handle in a six- or eight-page paper is your next problem.  Looking at the subdivisions of the subject in the catalog or the subtopics in the periodical index will give you some ideas on how to do this.

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The Internet is a new and speedy tool for research and seems limitless in its scope of topics – archaic or current. full-text articles from on-line journals can be accessed and printed out. Or they can be sent to your home e-mail as well as saved onto a disk. Via computer, you can search encyclopedias, newspapers, TV news, magazines, journals in the fields of medicine, sociology, psychology, sports, agriculture, ecology, etc. If you don’t print or save an interesting article and think you may want to return to the site later, it is a good idea to make a works cited card for it.

 

       Step III:  Developing a Thesis Statement (Week 2)

 

Now that you have found your subject and have done some preliminary reading about it, you must decide how you will work with the topic you have chosen.  Developing one sentence, the thesis statement, which presents the scope of your entire paper, will accomplish this step.

 

For instance, your subject may be "Alternative Energy Sources."  To show what you will discuss and the viewpoint from which you will write about, the thesis statement could be "The sun is a source of energy which should be utilized as a practical method for relieving the energy crisis."  With such a statement in mind you can proceed to gather information in an intelligent manner.  You will search for material to support the statement and work within the limits it provides.

 

There is no value in simply restating the facts or opinions you have read.  You must decide to concentrate on some aspect of the topic  which your preliminary reading has suggested and which further reading will clarify.

 

Take the topic of the teenage runaway as an example.  Your preliminary reading may have shown what types of teenagers run away, what problems they run away from, what problems arise for the runaway, and have found statistical studies on the problem.  Your reading may suggest the public assumes the problem of runaways exists only with families of "problem" children. One possible thesis statement focusing on that aspect could read "Contrary to popular myth, the teenage runaway problem is not limited to the typical juvenile delinquent."

 

As you gather material on your topic, you will be able to select the details to support your thesis statement.  Remember: a good statement is never a preconceived notion or a bias that you could prove only by distorting or ignoring facts; nor is it the statement of any accepted fact about which research  would reveal  nothing new.  The more exact the statement is, the easier the paper will be to research and to write.  At this point, you will need to add more materials to your works cited since you know which precise aspect of the topic you are treating.  Remember to make a complete works cited card as you consult each source. With the thesis statement completed, you are ready to make a preliminary outline for your paper.

                                                     

Step IV:  Preparing the Outline (Week 2 Continued)

 

Having decided what our paper will discuss by phrasing the thesis statement, your next step is preparing a preliminary outline.

 

An outline is the skeleton frame of your paper.  It consists of briefly stated ideas or topics arranged in a logical order to show the relationship between the ideas.  It makes sure that you present everything on your subject which is necessary to reach your conclusion.  A good outline will guide you in your reading and note-taking  - and is essential!

Text Box:  Start asking yourself questions about the subject you have selected, but so far have only background information about.  What do you want to find out about it and what information will you need to arrive at a conclusion?  Ask yourself:  What?  Why?  When?  Where?  How?  Jot down the ideas the questions give you, then arrange them logically.

 

A logical order for some subjects is a chronological arrangement.  For others, you can present the main idea and then expand it; that is, introduce the subject, develop it, then show the significance of what you have presented.

 

Outlines consist of a numbered list of important ideas with subheads describing different aspects of the important idea.  It may be a topical outline, which  simply states  the name of  the idea, or it may be a sentence outline  in  which  a  whole  thought  about  each  idea  is expressed.  The sentence outline has the advantage of making you think more clearly about what you are trying to do and allows you to get a good start on the actual writing.

 

The following examples of  outlines will help you as you prepare one for your own subject. NOTE: YOUR RESEARCH PAPER WILL NOT LOOK LIKE THE OUTLINE FORMAT. The outline is a guide for thinking and writing.  Consult your Little Brown Handbook to see what a research paper will look like.

 

Example 1.  Topical outline arranged in chronological order                    

Subject: The Effect of the Automobile on the Development of Highways

 

Thesis statement:  Improved engineering and increased use of automobiles has led to the construction of many miles of interstate and secondary highways.

 

 

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A.      Early automobiles                                                          

 1.         Number per capita population

2.            Speed and power

3.            Purposes for which used

B.      Early highways

       1.         Miles constructed 

2.                 Materials used 

3.        Amount of use

C.       Modern automobiles

      1.        Number per capita population

2.        Speed and power

3.                 Purposes for which used

a.                    Travel to work 

b.                   Pleasure

c           Transportation of goods

c.                    Schoolhouses

D.      Modern highways

       1.     Miles constructed