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Research Strategy. Tips for a successful plan. Planning Your Work. Research writing is a process Understand the situation of your subject, purpose, and audience. Gather ideas and information about the subject. Focus and arrange ideas. Draft a paper. Revise and edit your paper.
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Research Strategy Tips for a successful plan
Planning Your Work • Research writing is a process • Understand the situation of your subject, purpose, and audience. • Gather ideas and information about the subject. • Focus and arrange ideas. • Draft a paper. • Revise and edit your paper.
Keeping a Research Journal • This is a place to keep your ideas about: • Sources you want to consult • Leads you want to pursue • Any difficulties you encounter • This is NOT where you should keep notes on what your sources actually say.
Finding a Researchable Subject • Seek a subject that interests you. • Are there ample sources of information available? • Does the subject encourage research in the kinds of sources required? • Will the subject lead you to an objective assessment of the sources and to a defensible conclusion? • Does the subject suit the length of the paper and the time given?
Asking a Research Question • Asking a questions can give focus to your research. • Ask narrow questions • How does Human activity effect the environment? is very broad. • How can buying environmentally friendly products help the environment? • How, if at all, should carbon emissions be taxed? • Both of these questions are narrow AND requires more than a simple yes or no answer.
Setting Goals for Sources • Your Own Knowledge- Through brainstorming you will explore your own thoughts. • Kinds of Sources- You will rely on a variety of sources for your research. • Library and Internet sources- Library sources are easy to retrieve and are generally reliable. Internet sources can be valuable if used well. • Primary and Secondary sources- Primary sources are firsthand accounts like works of literature, letters, speeches, experiments, or observations. Secondary sources report and analyze primary sources. EX: a reporter’s summary of an issue, a historian’s account of a battle, or a critic’s reading of a poem.
Kinds of Sources, Con’t • Scholarly and Popular sources- Scholarly sources are peer reviewed. You are expected to emphasis scholarly sources in your work. Popular sources may also be used. Scholarly VS. Popular—How to tell the difference: 1. Check the title- is it technical? Does it use general vocab? 2. Check the publisher- Is it a publisher of scholarly journals like Harvard University Press? Or a popular magazine like Consumer Reports? 3. Check the length- Popular articles tend to be much shorter. 4. Check the author- Is she/he an expert?
Keeping an Annotated Bibliography • An Annotated Bibliography helps you track your sources. • Source information- Each entry on the bibliography is headed with the citation of the source. This will be helpful later, when you need to develop a works cited page. • Annotations- This is what makes this bibliography more than a list—it becomes a resource for assessing sources. You should record: • What you know about the content of the source • How the source may be helpful in your research