Research

Objectives

  • Devise a personal strategy for planning, researching, writing, and revising a successful research paper 
  • Learn to find, identify, analyze, and evaluate sources in the library and on the Internet 
  • Distinguish between facts and interpretation 
  • Learn to summarize, quote, paraphrase, and document source material

Resources

  • Dodds, Jack. "The Research Project." The Ready Reference Handbook. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000. 281-335. 
  • Ramage, John D., and John C. Bean. "Reading Arguments." Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998. 24-51.

Finding Sources

College professors share a lot of information with their students through lectures and reading assignments, but they also expect students to find information on their own. In fact, learning to gather information effectively should be one of your major goals while in college. Learn how to use both primary sources, which contain raw data that you need to interpret, and secondary sources, in which people such as scholars interpret data. I suggest that you explore the following sources in the order I have listed them.

Primary Sources

What they are: Think of primary sources as collections of raw data requiring interpretation. It is a good idea to start your research by looking at primary sources so that you can develop your own ideas. How to find them: Run searches on a library catalog such as Brave Cat or specialized databases such as News Bank. In some fields, such as psychology and linguistics, you can create your own primary sources by conducting surveys, interviews, or observations. Advantage: Studying primary sources gives you valuable practice in examining information carefully, reasoning inductively, and developing a claim. Disadvantage: While primary sources are easy to find and may even appear in your text book, others may require some digging. Consider all of the primary sources listed below and ask a librarian or use interlibrary loan to get the ones you need.

Subject Encyclopedias

What they are: Like general encyclopedias, subject encyclopedias contain basic information--including names, dates, and definitions--about individual topics. Because they are more specialized, however, they may contain more details than general encyclopedias.How to find them: Ask a reference librarian where you can find the subject encyclopedias for a particular field, such as literature or history. After you have visited the library's reference section a few times, you will become familiar with the call letters for the different fields and will be able to find subject encyclopedias on your own. Advantage: It is a good idea to look at subject encyclopedias early in your research because they are general in focus, provide useful background information, are highly credible, and often contain brief bibliography.Disadvantage: Because the entries in subject encyclopedias are general and relatively brief, you still will need to look at scholarly books or articles to find more detailed information, especially elaborate interpretive information.

Scholarly Books and Journal Articles

What they are: Scholars are experts in particular fields such as biology, sociology, or history. Most have earned advanced degrees, teach at colleges or universities, conduct research, and publish their findings in the form of books or articles in scholarly journals. Like popular magazines, scholarly journals appear periodically, but they contain information designed for experts, rather than the general public. After you have begun to interpret primary sources, you can use the material in these secondary sources to qualify, support, and refine your interpretation. How to find them: Run searches on a library catalog such as Brave Cat or research databases, which are computer resources listing thousands of books and articles in particular fields. Type in the name of a topic, title, author, or a key word. Several databases are available on the Sampson-Livermore Library Web site. If you wish to search a database when you are off campus, you may need a password. Call the library's reference desk (521-6265) for information about getting a password. You also can find scholarly books and articles by checking bibliographies, or lists of works cited, which list useful sources on a particular topic. Whenever you come across a book or article on your topic, check the end for a bibliography and copy down the citations for other books and articles on your topic. Use these citations to find the materials. In many cases, you will have to use interlibrary loan, a service through which you can order books and photocopies of articles from other libraries, often at no cost to you. If an item you need is not available at our library, ask a librarian about interlibrary loan. Once you understand the process, you can order materials by visiting the library's Web site and typing in the appropriate information. Because it usually takes about a week or two to receive an item through interlibrary loan, you should order these materials as soon as possible. Advantages: Because they come from experts, scholarly books and articles generally have a great deal of credibility. That is, we have good reason to believe the material because the authors have extensive education and experience in the field. Books often offer useful background information, are general in scope, and have extensive bibliographies. Articles cover a wider variety of topics than books and also have bibliographies.Disadvantages: Scholarly books and articles often contain very challenging language. Keep a dictionary and a subject encyclopedia at hand when you read them. Because they take a long time to complete, scholarly books do not appear as frequently as journal articles. As a result, it sometimes may be difficult to find many up-to-date scholarly books about exactly the topic you want to study.

Internet

What it is: A network of computers all over the world, the Internet gives you access to both information and experts. By browsing the World Wide Web, you can find thousands of Web sites on authors, history, music, politics, and other topics. Through e-mail, you can request information from scholars and conduct surveys. How to use it: Follow my instructions for browsing the World Wide Web and using e-mail. Advantage: Through the Internet, you can reach vast amounts of information without leaving a computer terminal, and you can print or cut and paste relevant material. Disadvantage: Because anyone can publish material on the Internet, much of it is not credible. When doing research on the World Wide Web, always try to identify the authors and evaluate their credibility. Are they scholars? Where did they get their information? For help determining the credibility of material you find on the Internet, visit Evaluating Internet Research Sources.

Using Sources

Once you have found some sources, you need to incorporate the information in them into your own paper. At this crucial stage in your research, you must distinguish between facts and interpretation, as well as know how to use full and partial quotations, paraphrases, attribution, documentation, and a list of works cited.

Fact: a date, statistic, or other detail that most people accept as indisputable; because facts do not belong to anyone, you generally do not have to cite a fact when you write a research paper; however, you will want to cite a fact if 1) a researcher has done painstaking investigative work or experimentation to uncover the date, statistic, or detail, or 2) readers may want to see the date, statistic, or detail in the context of the place where you found it. Example of a fact: Edgar Allan Poe published "The Raven" in 1845.
Interpretation: a conclusion that someone--often a scholar in the field--has drawn from the facts; because different scholars can reach very different conclusions even working with the same facts, interpretation needs to be cited with an attributive phrase and a parenthetical citation. Example of an interpretation: Daniel Hoffman has argued that Poe sought to create a world of imagination (50).
Full quotation: the use of an entire sentence or more than one sentence from a source. To quote successfully, copy the author's exact words and place quotation marks around them. Quote material that is valuable because of the way it is expressed; for example, you may want to quote a sentence or phrase that is particularly colorful or poetic. Example: In an article on James Strang, Bil Gilbert explains: "While he ruled, however, he did so in the old-fashioned way: by divine right as the ultimate lawgiver, political authority, arbiter of manners and morals for his people" (84). 
Partial quotation: the use of part of a sentence from a source. Use a partial quotations when you need only a word or phrase, not an entire sentence, from a source. Incorporate the word or phrase you are borrowing into your own sentence and do not place a comma before it unless you normally would put one there anyway. Example: Karla F. C. Holloway, a professor of English and African American Literature at Duke University, argues that "black memories in African American culture are as painful as they are precious" (32).
Paraphrase: the rephrasing of someone else's information in your own words. To paraphrase without plagiarizing, change both the words and the syntax--or word order--of the original and give credit to the source through attribution and documentation. Paraphrase material that is valuable mainly because of its meaning, not its expression. Example: Karla F. C. Holloway, a professor of English and African American Literature at Duke University, argues that African Americans have to cope with troubling memories (32).
Citation: a specific reference to a source the writer has used in his or her argument; documentation not only gives credit to the person or persons responsible for research or an interpretation, but also allows readers to see this research or interpretation in its original context. Example: Biographer Kenneth Silverman suggests that the modern understanding of childhood bereavement can illuminate elements of Edgar Allan Poe's work (76-78).
Attribution: a reference within a sentence to a source, usually its author; by incorporating the source into the flow of the sentence, attribution makes academic argument sound more natural. Example: Biographer Kenneth Silverman suggests that the modern understanding of childhood bereavement can illuminate elements of Edgar Allan Poe's work (76-78).
Works Cited: a list of sources that you cited in your paper; this list should appear at the end of your paper and should conform to the style used in a particular discipline. When writing a paper for an English class, for example, you generally will use MLA style. See The MLA Handbook or your composition text book for guidelines on using MLA style. Do not assume that the format that appears in the research database is MLA format. Example:Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

Terms

Some Primary Sources

  • novels 
  • poems 
  • newspaper articles 
  • diaries 
  • interviews 
  • surveys 
  • government documents 
  • paintings 
  • songs 
  • movies

Some Subject Encylopedias

  • Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia 
  • A Handbook to Literature 
  • The Oxford Companion to the English Language 
  • The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language 
  • Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature 
  • Encyclopedia of Social Work

Some Scholarly Books

  • biographies 
  • collections of articles 
  • critical studies 
  • text books

Some Scholarly Journals

  • American Literature 
  • ESQ 
  • The Southern Quarterly 
  • Language 
  • The Journal of the American Medical Association 
  • The New England Journal of Medicine

Some Research Databases

  • MLA Bibliography 
  • EbscoHost 
  • Social Sciences Index

Internet Resources

Look Smart (www.looksmart.com) features links organized by category. Start with broad categories and choose narrower subjects until you find what you want.

Miningco (www.miningco.com) features links chosen by experts.

Who Where? (www.whowhere.com) allows you to find the e-mail and Web site addresses of people who have registered with Who Where?.

All American contains biographical information about authors, study questions, bibliographies, and more.

All English features definitions and exercises to help users study English grammar.

Techweb: In addition to features current on technology and an online encyclopedia of computer terms.

Suggestions for Practice

  1. Brainstorming: Divide a sheet of notebook paper into three columns and label them "Major and minor," "Interests," and "Hobbies." Drawing on your own interests and experiences, make a list of broad subjects for research papers. Write down everything that comes to mind. Examples: health, music, art, politics, science, recreation. Choose one of these topics and make a list of words, names, and phrases related to it, along with sources of information about it. After you have filled a page or so, review your list and circle interesting items to explore further.
  2. Reporter's Questions: One of the first things every journalist learns is the list of "Five Ws and an H": who, what, when, where, why, and how. Explore your topic by asking and answering these questions on a sheet of paper.
  3. Individual Research: Divide a sheet of notebook paper into two columns by drawing a vertical line about two inches from the left margin. In the left column, write "Key words" at the top and "Call numbers" in the middle. On the right side of the line, write "Resources." As you listen to the presentation on finding library sources, record the titles of subject encyclopedias, almanacs, and other resources, as well as key words you can use to search for information on your topic and the call numbers of books on your topic. After the presentation, use what you have learned and recorded to find material on your topic. Check out relevant books, make photocopies of articles, and use interlibrary loan to order items not in the library.
  4. Checklist: Read the "checklist of sources" in Section 47b of The Ready Reference Handbook. Find at least one source of each type listed here.
  5. Group Research: Delegate research responsibilities among group members working in the subject area. For example, if four people in a group all are doing research on postbellum inventions, one person might look for relevant articles in subject encyclopedias, another might run a search on a database such as America: History and Life, a third might search for books in the library catalog, and a fourth might track down items in a bibliography.
  6. Reading: Use the suggestions on pages 24 and 25 of Writing Arguments to read and understand an argumentative essay you found in your research.
  7. Taking Notes: Bring one of your sources, either a book or a photocopy, to a computer lab. Using the outline function of a word-processing program, take notes on this source. Make sure that your notes include at least one fact, one full quotation, one partial quotation, one paraphrase, and a works-cited entry in MLA format. Using Section 49d of The Ready Reference Handbook as a guide, record all relevant information and make sure to write one or two sentences in which you interpret the item in your own words. Whenever you borrow a writer's idea or exact words, use attribution and a parenthetical citation. Among your headings should be one for "background information"; under this heading, list relevant people, places, events, and other basic information relevant to your topic.
  8. Source Evaluation: Review one of your sources, answering the following questions about it:
    1. Is this a primary or a secondary source? Cite evidence to back up your conclusion.
    2. If this is a primary source, is it a letter, diary, work of art, poem, newspaper article, or something else? If this is a secondary source, is it a subject encyclopedia, a scholarly book, a scholarly journal article, or something else?
    3. Summarize this source. If it is a primary source, what is the subject? If it is a secondary source, what is the writer's claim? What types of evidence does the writer use to support his or her claim? If the writer conducted a survey, was the sample sufficiently large and representative? Explain.
    4. Assess the source's credibility. What are the writer's credentials and tone? Does the writer appear to have an agenda? Cite evidence to back up your conclusion. Use the tips in Section 49b of The Ready Reference Handbook to assess Internet sources.
    5. Analyze the source's timeliness. When was it published? What might have happened in this field since that date? Is the evidence in the source sufficiently up-to-date to be worth citing in your paper? Explain.
Updated February 4, 2000 | University of North Carolina at Pembroke
© Mark Canada, 2000 | canada@sassette.uncp.edu

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