50.1 The Process of Research Writing 50.1 Create a plan for your research project. Research writing gives you a chance to work like a detective solv-ing a case. The mystery is the answer to a question you care about. The search for the answer leads you to consider what others think about your subject, but you do more than simply report their views. You build on them to develop and support your own opinion, and ultimately you become an expert in your own right. Your investi-gation will be more productive and enjoyable if you take the steps described in this chapter.
Research writing is a writing process:• You work within a particular situation of subject, purpose, audi-ence, genre, and other factors.• You gather ideas and information about your subject. • You focus and arrange your ideas. • You draft to explore your meaning. • You revise to develop and shape your writing. • You edit to refine and polish your writing.Although the process seems neatly sequential in this list, you know from experience that the stages overlap—that, for instance, you may begin drafting before you’ve gathered all the information you expect to find, and then while drafting you may discover a source that causes you to rethink your approach. Anticipating the process of research writing can free you to be flexible in your search and open to discoveries.A thoughtful plan and systematic procedures can help you fol-low through on the diverse activities of research writing. One step is to make a schedule like the one below that apportions the available time to the necessary work. You can estimate that each segment marked off by a horizontal line will occupy roughly one-quarter of the total time—for example, a week in a four-week assignment arggments are the first two, so get started early enough to accommo-date the unexpected.
Scheduling steps in research writing Complete by:1. Setting a schedule and beginning a research journal 2. Finding a researchable subject and question 3. Setting goals for sources 4. Finding print and electronic sources, and making a work-ing, annotated bibliography5. Evaluating and synthesizing sources 6. Gathering information from sources, often using sum-mary, paraphrase, and direct quotation 7. Taking steps to avoid plagiarism8. Developing a thesis statement and creating a structure 9. Drafting the paper, integrating summaries, paraphrases, and direct quotations into your ideas 10. Citing sources in your text11. Revising and editing the paper 12. Finalizing text citations and preparing the list of works cited or references13. Preparing the final manuscript Final paper due
keeping a research journalWhile working on a research project, carry a notebook or a com-puter with you at all times to use as a research journal, a place to record your activities and ideas. In the journal’s dated entries, you can write about the sources you consult, the leads you want to pursue, and any difficulties you encounter. Most important, you can record your thoughts about sources, leads, dead ends, new direc-tions, relationships, and anything else that strikes you. The act of writing in the journal can expand and clarify your thinking. To avoid mixing up your thoughts and those of others, keep separate notes on what your sources actually say.50.2 Research Questions 50.2 Find a researchable subject and question. Begin with an assigned subject or one that you wa benefit of research); then narrow the subject to manageable size by asking questions about it. Selecting and limiting a subject for a research paper can present special opportunities and problems.50.2.1 Appropriate subjectWhen you settle on a subject, ask the following questions about it. For each requirement, there are corresponding pitfalls. • Are ample sources of information available on the subject? Avoid a very recent subject, such as a newly announced medical dis-covery or a breaking story in today’s news, unless you are placing it in a larger context.• Does the subject encourage research in the kinds and number of sources required by the assignment? Avoid (a) a subject that depends entirely on personal opinion and experience, such as the virtues of your hobby, and (b) a subject that requires research in only one source, such as a straight factual biography.• Will the subject lead you to an objective assessment of sources and to defensible conclusions? Avoid a subject that rests entirely on belief or prejudice, such as when human life begins or why women (or men) are superior. Your readers are unlikely to be swayed from their own beliefs.• Does the subject suit the length of the paper assigned and the time given for research and writing? Avoid a broad subject that has too many sources to survey adequately, such as a major event in history.0.2.2 Research questionAsking a question or questions about your subject opens avenues of inquiry. In asking questions, you can consider what you already know about the subject, explore what you don’t know, and begin to develop your own perspective. Try to narrow your research question so that you can answer it in the time and space you have available. The question How does human activity affect the environment? is very broad, encompass-ing issues as diverse as pollution, distribution of resources, climate change, population growth, land use, biodiversity, and the ozone layer. In contrast, the question How can sustainable agriculture help the environment? or How, if at all, should carbon emissions be taxed? is much narrower. Each question also requires more than a sim-ple yes or no answer, so that answering, even tentatively, demands thought about pros and cons, causes and effects.As you read and write, your question will probably evolve to reflect your increasing knowledge of the subject, and eventually its answer will become your main idea, or thesis statement.
Research strategy50.3 Search Strategies 50.3Set goals for finding sources.Before you start looking for sources, consider what you already know about your subject and where you are likely to find information on it.50.3.1 Your own knowledgeDiscovering what you already know about your topic will guide you in discovering what you don’t know. Take some time at the start to write down everything you know about the subject: facts you have learned; opinions you have heard or read elsewhere; and, of course, your own opinions. Use one of these discovery techniques discussed to explore and develop your ideas: keeping a journal, observing your surroundings, freewriting, brainstorming, mind mapping, or asking questions. When you’ve explored your thoughts, make a list of questionsfor which you don’t have answers, whether factual (How many farms in the United States practice sustainable agriculture?) or more open-ended (Are sustainable farming practices better for the environ-ment?). These questions will give you clues about the sources you need to look for first.50.3. Kinds of sources
For many research projects, you’ll want to consult a mix of sources. You may start by seeking the outlines of your topic—the range and depth of opinions about it—in reference works and articles in popu-lar periodicals or through a Web search. Then, as you refine your views and your research question, you’ll move on to more special-ized sources, such as scholarly books and periodicals and your own interviews or surveys. The mix of sources you choose depends heavily on your sub-ject. For example, Brandon Sele’s paper on sustainable agriculture required the use of recent sources because environmentally friendly practices are relatively new to the industry. Your mix of sources may also be specified by your instructor or limited by the requirements of your assignment.
Sources through the library or the open WebThe print and electronic sources available at your library or through its Web site—mainly reference works, books, and articles in periodicals—have two big advantages over most of what you’ll find on the open Web: library sources are cataloged and indexed for easy retrieval; and they are generally reliable, having been screened first by their publishers and then by the library’s staff. In contrast, the retrieval systems of the open Web are more difficult to use effectively, and the sources themselves tend to be less reli-able because most do not pass through any screening before being posted. (There are many exceptions, such as online scholarly jour-nals and reference works. But these sources are generally available through your library’s Web site as well.)Most instructors expect research writers to consult library sources. But they’ll accept sources from the open Web, too, if you have used them judiciously. Even with its disadvantages, the Inter-net can be a valuable resource for primary sources, current infor-mation, and a diversity of views.Primary and secondary sources Use primary sources when they are required by the assignment or are appropriate for your subject. Primary sources are documents and objects that were created during the period you are studying. They consist of firsthand or original accounts, such as works of literature, historical documents (letters, speeches, and so on), eye-witness reports (including articles by journalists who are on loca-tion), reports on experiments or surveys conducted by the writer, and sources you originate (interviews, experiments, observations, or correspondence).Many assignments will allow you to use secondary sources, which report and analyze information drawn from other sources, often primary ones. Examples include a reporter’s summary of a controversial issue, a historian’s account of a battle, a critic’s read-ing of a poem, and a psychologist’s evaluation of several studies. (Sometimes a secondary source may actually be your primary source, as when you analyze a historian’s account or respond to a critic’s interpretation.) In themselves, secondary sources may con-tain helpful summaries and interpretations that direct, support, and extend your own thinking. However, most research-writing assignments expect your own ideas to go beyond those in such sources.
Scholarly and popular sourcesThe scholarship of acknowledged experts is essential for depth, authority, and specificity. Most instructors expect students to empha-size scholarly sources in their research. But the general-interest views and information of popular sources can provide everyday examples, anecdotes, and stories that can help you apply scholarly approaches to your subject, and they can provide context for very recent topics. Use the following guidelines to determine whether a source is scholarly or popular.• Check the title. Is it technical, or does it use a general vocabulary? • Check the publisher. Is it a scholarly journal (such as Cultural Geographies) or a publisher of scholarly books (such as Oxford.Research strategyUniversity Press), or is it a popular magazine (such as Con-sumer Reports or Time) or a publisher of popular books (such as Vintage)?• Check the length of periodical articles. Scholarly articles are gen-erally much longer than magazine and newspaper articles.• Check the author. Search the Web for the author. Is he or she an expert on the topic?• Check the URL. A Web site’s URL, or electronic address, includes an abbreviation that can tell you something about the origin of the source: scholarly sources usually end in edu, org, or gov, while popular sources usually end in com. (See 52.2.3 for more on types of online sources.)• Check for sources. Scholarly authors cite their sources formally in notes or a bibliography.Older and newer sources • Check the publication date. For most subjects a combination of older, established sources (such as books) and current sources (such as newspaper articles, interviews, or Web sites) will pro-vide both background and up-to-date information. Only histori-cal subjects or very current subjects require an emphasis on one extreme or another.Impartial and biased sources res 50.3Seek a range of viewpoints. Sources that attempt to be impartial can offer an overview of your subject and trustworthy facts. Sources with clear biases can give you a range of views about a subject and enrich your understanding of it. Of course, to discover bias, you may have to read the source carefully, but you can infer quite a bit just from a bibliographical listing. • Check the author. Do a Web search to find out more about the author. Is he or she a respected researcher (thus more likely to be objective) or a leading proponent of a certain view (less likely to be objective)?• Check the title. It may reveal something about point of view. (Consider these contrasting titles: “The Myth of Sustainable Meat” versus “Green Agriculture: Features and Agricultural Pol-icy Measures for the Transition to a Sustainable Agriculture.”)Sources with helpful featuresDepending on your topic and how far along your research is, you may want to look for sources with features such as illustrations (which can clarify important concepts), bibliographies (which can direct you to other sources), and indexes (which can help you develop keywords for electronic searches).
.4 Working Bibliographies 50.4 Prepare a working bibliography.To track where sources are, compile a working bibliography as you uncover possibilities. When you have a substantial file—say, ten to thirty sources—you can decide which ones seem most promising and look them up first.50.4.1 Source informationWhen you turn in your paper, you will be expected to attach a list of the sources you have used. Your list must include all the information needed to find the sources, in a format that readers can understand. The box below shows the information you should record for each type of source so that you will not have to retrace your steps later. Recording source information meticulously will help you avoidcareless plagiarism because you will be less likely to omit the infor-mation in your paper. Careful records will also help you avoid omit-ting or mixing up numbers, dates, and other data when it’s time to write your citations.50.4.2 Annotations Your instructor may ask you to prepare an annotated bibliography as part of the research process or as a separate assignment. Creat-ing annotations converts your bibliography into a tool for assessing sources, helping you discover gaps that may remain in your sources and helping you decide which sources to pursue in depth. As you find and evaluate each source, record not only its publi-cation information but also the following: • What you know about the content of the source. Periodical data-bases and book catalogs generally include abstracts, or summa-ries, of sources that can help with this part of the annotation.• How you think the source may be helpful in your research. Does it offer expert opinion, statistics, an important example, or a range of views? Does it place your subject in a historical, social, or economic context?• Your assessment of the source. Consider how reliable the source is and how it might fit into your research. Taking the time with your annotations can help you discover gaps that may remain in your sources and will help you decide which sources to pursue in depth. The following entry from an annotated bibliography (Figure 50.1) shows one student’s annota-tion of a source, including a summary, a note on the source fea-tures the student thought would be helpful, and an assessment of the source’s strength and weakness for his purposes.
For Web material and other electronic sources Name(s) of author(s) and other contributorsTitle and subtitle of source Title of Web site Publication data: publisher and date of publicationAny publication data for the source in another medium(print, film, etc.) Development of search terms Take time early in your research to develop search terms that describe your subject effectively. For this step, it helps to under-stand the difference between keywords and subject headings: • Keywords are the terms you type when you begin a search. In a library catalog or an online database, a keyword search looks for that word (or words) in titles, authors, and subject headings and sometimes within lists of keywords supplied by the author or in user tags added by readers. On the open Web, a keyword search looks for your terms anywhere in the record. In any case, the pro-cess is entirely automatic, so as a researcher your challenge is to find keywords that others have used to describe the same subject.• Subject headings (also called subject terms) tell you what a source is about. They are assigned to books and articles by people who have read the sources and categorized them, so they can be more efficient than keywords at finding relevant sources. To find subject headings, use and refine your keywords until you find a promising source. On the source’s full record, check the list of subject headings to see how the source is cate-gorized. Building the subject headings that most closely match your subject into your search terms can improve your searches.
Refinement of search termsDatabases, catalogs, and search engines provide systems that you can use to refine your search terms for your purposes. The basic operations appear in the following box, but resources do differ. For instance, some assume that AND should link key-words, while others provide options specifying “Must contain all the words” and other equivalents for the operations in the box. You can learn a search engine’s system by consulting its Advanced Search page. You will probably have to use trial and error in developing your terms because library catalogs, databases, and search engines may all use slightly different words to describe your subject. If you are having trouble finding appropriate sources, try using subject head-ings, and be flexible in your search terms. The process is not busy-work—far from it. Besides leading you eventually to worthwhile sources, it can also teach you a great deal about your subject: how you can or should narrow it, how it is and is not described by oth-ers, what others consider interesting or debatable about it, and what the major arguments are.src 51.1 sustainableagricultureWays to refine keywords Most databases and many search engines work with Boolean operators, terms or symbols that allow you to expand or limit your keywords and thus your search. • Use AND or + to narrow the search by including only sources that use all the given words. The keywords sustainable AND agriculture request only the sources in the shaded area:• Use NOT or – (“minus”) to narrow the search by excluding irrelevant words. Sustainable AND agriculture NOT industrial excludes sources that use the word industrial:sustainableagriculture industrial• Use OR to broaden the search by giving alternative keywords. Sustainable AND agriculture OR farming allows for sources that use a synonym for agriculture:
Use quotation marks or parentheses to form search phrases. For instance, “urban agriculture” requests the exact phrase, not the sepa-rate words. Only sources using urban agriculture would turn up.• Use wild cards to permit different versions of the same word. In consum*, for instance, the wild card * indicates that sources may include consume, consumer, consumerism, and consumption as well as consumptive, consumedly, and consummate. The example suggests that you have to consider all the variations allowed by a wild card and whether it opens up your search too much. If you seek only two or three from many variations, you may be better off using OR: con-sumption OR consumerism. (Note that some systems use ?, :, or + for a wild card instead of *.)• Be sure to spell your keywords correctly. Some search tools will look for close matches or approximations, but correct spelling gives you the best chance of finding relevant sources.51.2 Reference Works 51.2Find reference works.Reference works, available through your library and on the open Web, include encyclopedias, dictionaries, digests, bibliographies, indexes, atlases, almanacs, and handbooks. Your research must go beyond these sources, but they can help you decide whether your topic really interests you and whether it meets the requirements for a research paper. Preliminary research in reference works can also help you develop keywords for electronic searches and can direct you to more detailed sources on your topic. The Web-based encyclopedia Wikipedia (at wikipedia.org) is one of the largest reference sites on the Internet. Like any encyclopedia, Wiki-pedia can provide background information for research on a topic. But unlike other encyclopedias, Wikipedia is a wiki, a kind of Web site that can be contributed to or edited by anyone. Ask your instructor whether Wikipedia is an acceptable source before you use it. If you do use it, you must carefully evaluate any information you find.51.3 Books and Periodicals 51.3Find books and periodicals.51.3.1 Finding books Your library’s catalog is searchable via the library’s Web site. Unless you seek a specific author or title, you’ll want to search for books byusing keywords or subject headings. In a keyword search, you start with your own search terms. In a subject-heading search, you use the headings on the records of promising sources to locate similar sources. Figure 51.1 shows the complete record for a book, includ-ing the subject headings and the call number for finding the book on the library’s shelves.Finding periodicals Periodicals include newspapers, academic journals, and maga-zines, either print or online. Newspapers are useful for detailed accounts of past and current events. Journals and magazines can be harder to distinguish, but their differences are important. Most col-lege instructors expect students’ research to rely more on journals than on magazines.JournalsExamples American Anthropologist, Journal of Black Studies, Journal of Chemi-cal EducationAvailability Mainly college and university libraries, either on library shelves or in online databasesPurpose Advance knowledge in a particu-lar fieldMagazinesNational Geographic, Time, Roll-ing Stone, Sports IllustratedPublic libraries, newsstands, bookstores, the open Web, and online databasesExpress opinion, inform, or entertain Finding sources• Do you need primary sources? Some specialized databases collect primary sources—for instance, historical newspapers, literary works not available in print, diaries, letters, music recordings, album liner notes. To determine whether you have access to such materials through your library, consult the list of data-bases on your library’s Web site and read the descriptions to find out what each offers.• Which databases most likely include the kinds of resources you need? The Web sites of most libraries provide lists of data-bases organized alphabetically and by discipline. Some librar-ies also provide research guides, which list potentially helpful databases for your search terms. To determine each database’s focus, check the description of the database or the list of indexed resources. The description will also tell you the time period the database covers, so you’ll know whether you also need to consult older print indexes at the library.Database searchesWhen you first search a database, use your own keywords to locate sources. The procedure is illustrated in Figures 51.2, 51.3, and 51.4. Your goal is to find at least one source that seems just right for your subject so that you can see what subject headings the database itself uses for such sources. Picking up one or more of those headings for your search terms will focus and speed your search. Many databases allow you to limit your search to so-calledpeer-reviewed or refereed journals—that is, scholarly journals whose articles have been reviewed before publication by experts in the field and then revised by the author. Limiting your search
o peer-reviewed journals can help you navigate huge databases that might otherwise return scores of unusable articles. The use of abstractsIn Figure 51.4, the full article record shows a key feature of many databases’ periodical listings: an abstract that summarizes the article. By describing research methods, conclusions, and other information, an abstract can tell you whether you want to pursue an article and thus save you time. However, the abstract cannot replace 51.4.2 A sample search src 51.4 Figure 51.5 First Google search resultsKeywords used for searchNumber of resultsFigures 51.5 and 51.6 illustrate how the refinement of keywords can narrow a search to maximize the relevant hits and minimize the irrelevant ones. Brandon Sele, a student researching the environ-mental effects of farming practices, started on Google with the key-words sustainable agriculture. But the search returned more than 6.5 million items, with the first page including sponsored sites and other advertisers (see Figure 51.5). Sele realized he had to alter his strategy to get more useful results. He experimented with combina-tions of synonyms and narrower terms. The keywords “sustainable agriculture” environmental impact did refine the search but still pro-duced 130,000 results. From Google’s Advanced Search help, Sele learned that he could specify what he wanted to see in the URLs of sources. Add-ing site:.gov limited the results to government sites, whose URLs end in .gov. With “sustainable agriculture” environmental impacts site:.gov, Sele received 25,600 results (see Figure 51.6). Although the number was still large, the government origin combined with Google’s criteria for ranking sources gave Sele confidence that he would easily find sources to serve his needs. He continued to limit the search by replacing site:.gov with site:.org (nonprofit organiza-tions), site:.edu (educational institutions), and site:.com (commer-cial organizations). Sele’s Websearch illustrates the trial-and-error approachrequired to refine keywords so that they locate worthwhile sources. Almost any Web search will require similar persistence and patience.
Research writing is much more than finding sources and reporting their contents. The challenge and interest come from interacting with and synthesizing sources: reading them critically to discover their meanings, judge their relevance and reliability, and create relationships among them, and using them to extend and support your own ideas so that you make your subject your own. You can collect and store source information in a number of ways: handwrite notes, type notes into a file, copy and paste chunks of text from online articles into a file, annotate print or electronic documents such as PDF files, or scan or photocopy pages from books and other print sources.Whatever method you use to gather information, you have fourmain goals: • Keep accurate records of what sources say. Accuracy helps prevent misrepresentation and plagiarism. If you write notes by hand or type them into a file, do so carefully to avoid introducing errors.Keep track of others’ words and ideas. Put quotation marks around any words you take from a source, and always include a source citation that ties the quotation to the publication infor-mation you have recorded. Also include a source citation for any idea you summarize or paraphrase so that you know the idea is not your own but came from a specific source. For more on summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting sources, see the next section.• Keep accurate records of how to find sources. Whether you handwrite notes or work with an electronic file, always link the source material to its complete publication information. These records are essential for retracing steps and for cit-ing sources in your drafts and in the final paper. If you have the complete information in your working bibliography, you can use a shorthand reference to it on the source material, such as the author’s name and any page or other reference number.• Synthesize sources. Information gathering is a critical process in which you learn from sources, understand the relation-ships among them, and develop your own ideas about your subject and your sources. Analyze and interact with your sources by highlighting key information and commenting on what they say.Culture and Language src 52.2Making a subject your own requires thinking critically about sources and developing independent ideas. These goals may at first be uncom-fortable if your native culture emphasizes understanding and respecting established authority more than questioning and enlarging it. The infor-mation here will help you work with sources so that you can become an expert in your own right and convincingly convey your expertise to others.52.2 Evaluating Sources 52.2Evaluate sources.Before you gather information and ideas from sources, scan them to evaluate what they have to offer, how reliable they are, and how you might use them. As you evaluate each source, add an assess-ment of it to your annotated bibliography.In evaluating sources, you need to consider how they come to you. The sources you find through the library, both in print and on the Web, have been previewed for you by their publishers and by the library’s staff. They still require your critical reading, but you can have some confidence in the information they contain. With online sources you reach directly, however, you can’t assume similar previewing, so your critical reading must be especially rigorous.52.2.1 Relevance and reliabilityNot all the sources you find will prove worthwhile: some may be irrelevant to your project, and others may be unreliable. Gauging the relevance and reliability of sources is the essential task of evalu-ating them.Questions for evaluating sources Relevance• Does the source devote some attention to your subject? Does it focus on your subject or cover it marginally? How does it compare to other sources you’ve found?• Is the source appropriately specialized for your needs? Check the source’s treatment of a topic you know something about, to ensure that it is neither too superficial nor too technical.• Is the source up to date enough for your subject? When was the source published? If your subject is current, your sources should be, too.Reliability • Where does the source come from? Did you find it through your library or directly through the Internet? Is the source popular or scholarly?• Is the author an expert in the field? Check the author’s credentials in a biography (if the source includes one), in a biographical refer-ence, or by a keyword search of the Web.• What is the bias of the source? How do the author’s ideas relate to those in other sources? What areas does the author emphasize, ignore, or dismiss?• Is the source fair, reasonable, and well written? Does it provide sound reasoning and a fair picture of opposing views? Is the tone calm and objective? Is the source logically organized and error-free?• Are the claims well supported, even if you don’t agree with the author? Does the author provide accurate, relevant, representative, and adequate evidence to back up his or her claims? Does the author cite sources, and, if so, are they reliable?52.2.2 Evaluating library sources To evaluate sources you find through your library—either in print or on the library’s Web site—look at dates, titles, summaries, introductions, headings, author biographies, and any source cita-tions. The criteria that follow expand on the most important tips in the “Questions for evaluating sources” box. In the “Evaluating library sources” box, you can see how student Brandon Sele applied these criteria to two print sources, a magazine article and a journal article, that he consulted while researching green consumerism.Identify the origin of the source.Check whether a library source is popular or scholarly. Scholarly sources, such as refereed journals and university press books, are generally deeper and more reliable. But some popular sources, such as firsthand newspaper accounts and books for a general audience, are often appropriate for research projects.Check the author’s expertise.The authors of scholarly publications tend to be experts whose authority can be verified. Check the source to see whether it con-tains a biographical note about the author, check a biographical ref-erence, or check the author’s name in a keyword search of the Web. Look for other publications by the author and
