Writing discipline specific research papers

Writing and Research in the Disciplines

This is a resource for students who are writing research projects in various disciplines. The sections that follow contain information about writing conventions in major citation style guides, sources for information in different fields of study, and helpful advice for developing a thesis and organizing material when writing a research paper.

Writing

• How to Take Notes
• How to Summarize
• How to Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is something that everyone should know how to do and do it correctly. Paraphrasing is often confused with summarizing. They are not the same thing and can produce very different results to the reader. To summarize something will leave only a very general idea. Paraphrasing is taking someone else’s ideas and putting them in your own, unique words.

It is important, when paraphrasing someone, to give credit to the author. If you don’t give credit where it is due, it is considered plagiarism.

Here are a few basic guidelines for solid paraphrasing from Ms. Driscoll at Purdue University: 1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning. 2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card. 3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase. 4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form. 5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source. 6. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper. (Driscoll, 1)

Mr. Plotnick gives a great example of what not to do when paraphrasing another person’s writing. Given this excerpt from Oliver Sack’s essay “An Anthropologist on Mars”:

“The cause of autism has also been a matter of dispute. Its incidence is about one in a thousand, and it occurs throughout the world, its features remarkably consistent even in extremely different cultures. It is often not recognized in the first year of life, but tends to become obvious in the second or third year. Though Asperger regarded it as a biological defect of affective contact—innate, inborn, analogous to a physical or intellectual defect—Kanner tended to view it as a psychogenic disorder, a reflection of bad parenting, and most especially of a chillingly remote, often professional, "refrigerator mother." At this time, autism was often regarded as "defensive" in nature, or confused with childhood schizophrenia. A whole generation of parents—mothers, particularly—were made to feel guilty for the autism of their children.”

Here is an example of poor paraphrasing:

“The cause of the condition autism has been disputed. It occurs in approximately one in a thousand children, and it exists in all parts of the world, its characteristics strikingly similar in vastly differing cultures. The condition is often not noticeable in the child's first year, yet it becomes more apparent as the child reaches the ages of two or three. Although Asperger saw the condition as a biological defect of the emotions that was inborn and therefore similar to a physical defect, Kanner saw it as psychological in origin, as reflecting poor parenting and particularly a frigidly distant mother. During this period, autism was often seen as a defense mechanism, or it was misdiagnosed as childhood schizophrenia. An entire generation of mothers and fathers (but especially mothers) were made to feel responsible for their offspring's autism (Sacks 247-48).” Notice how most of the sentences have only a few words rearranged or changed for synonyms. The sentence structure and paragraph layout are even almost identical to the original. Just because you cite the page numbers at the end of your paragraph doesn’t mean that you’re in the clear for plagiarism (Plotnick, 1).

                                           -Brandon Evans

Driscoll, Dana Lynn. “Paraphrase: Write it in Your Own Words.” The Owl at Purdue. 1995. University of Purdue. April 11, 2008. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/01/

Plotnick, Jerry. “Paraphrase and Summary.” University College: Writing Workshop. 2007. University of Toronto. April 11, 2008. http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/paraphrase.html

• How to Organize

One of the toughest things about writing a paper is figuring out just how to organize it. Where do you begin? How do you begin? What do you include? What order do you put it in? How do you conclude your paper? Well below is a list of websites that may assist you in your organizational writing process. Included is also a brief summary of the positive and negative points of each website to help you further narrow your search.

1) How to Organize a Research Paper http://www.geocities.com/athens/oracle/4184 A Research Paper is a Tree

good: This provides a simple explanation of what to include in your paper, how to organize the basics of your paper, and what section to include specific information in. It gives an example of how an outline is a tree and how each aspect of your paper is like a specific part of the tree. This makes it easy to visually see where each piece of information should fall in your paper.

bad: It takes the example of the outline being a tree a bit far. It focuses more on making that analogy than it does presenting valuable information about writing a paper.

2) How to Organize Your Paper http://www.lasalle.edu/services/sheekey/organize.htm

good: It is a list of links to several websites to help with specific organizational problems such as having trouble putting ideas into the proper format in a paper, having trouble relating the different concepts in the paper, and having trouble getting started/getting organized.

bad: This site contains no actual information itself; it merely provides links to other sites that may be useful.

3) How to Organize a Research Paper http://www.ehow.com/how_138072_organize-research-paper.html

good: It contains a very cleat set of 8 steps to prepare for and organize your research paper. It also contains tips, warnings, and links to related articles and example research papers.

bad: It contains no examples of an actual paper, just links.

4) Research Guide for Students http://www.aresearchguide.com/1steps.html How to Write an A+ Research Paper

good: It contains a very clear list of steps to go through including choosing a topic, finding information, stating your thesis, making a tentative outline, organizing your notes, writing your first draft, and revising your final outline and draft. It includes a detalied explanation of each step as well as examples and links to find further information. It also contains a series of checklists to help ensure that you included everything and have written an effective paper.

bad: It unfortunately doesn't focus too much on actually writing the paper other than a brief discussion of the introduction, body, and conclusion.

5)How to write a Term Paper http://gale.cengage.com/free_resources/term_paper/begin.htm Begin and Organize a Research Paper

good: It contains a very detailed outline of instructions on essentially how to go about formatting your thoughts, creating a detailed outline, and different methods to implement following the creation of and outline.

bad: It only has a few examples of how to actually carry out each step of the given process which may make it a little more difficult to thoroughly follow.

• How to Create a Thesis

1. Defining Your Research Topic and Starting Your Search http://www.camellia.shc.edu/literacy/tableversion/lessons/lesson3/defining2.htm

Summary: The site seemed to be a broader, not quite as in-depth, website. The main reason I found it to be a useful resource is that it provided a very helpful analogy regarding narrowing a topic. The author compared it to two lakes, a smaller lake and a larger lake. The smaller lake was deep, but the large was shallow. The point was to emphasize how if you choose the larger lake, your topic will be more vague and broad, but by choosing the smaller, deeper lake you are able to go more into detail on your topic.

2. How To Write A Thesis Statement http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/thesis_statement.shtml

Summary: I liked this website because it was more specific as far as discussing certain points of developing a topic which would then turn into a thesis statement. What I found most interesting is the site had two sections which provided two approaches to developing the statement depending on whether or not the topic was assigned. Despite being given a topic, one must develop their own thesis. It also gave tips on deciding upon a topic if one is not assigned. I liked where the author stated that, "In general, your thesis statement will accomplish these goals if you think of the thesis as the answer to the question your paper explores." Very well put.

3. Developing a Central Claim http://uwp.duke.edu/wstudio/documents/developing_claim_000.pdf

Summary: This Duke University Writer's Studio webpage was a useful resource for explaining the development of a research question/thesis statement. It was a bit more detailed that most of the sites I have viewed, but I believe that is a good thing. It contained a lot of information, but it was well-organized into a paragraph layout, and it was easy to read. I liked one of the points in the second paragraph stating that, "Several sentences might be necessary to convery your thesis or central claim". I think many are taught that a thesis is a single sentence, and the website addresses that appropriately.

4. What Is A Thesis? http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/thesis.html

Summary: This page was quite different from the others I viewed. It was not a university's website, but it was full of useful information. One feature I really found appealing on this site was the 'thesis generator' link. It mapped out specifically how to create a good thesis statement.

5. Creating A Thesis Statement http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/545/01

Summary: I was glad to find a page on the Owl site because I have found it to be a useful database for writing in the past. The design of the page is simple and clearcut, making it easy to find information about the desired subject. The webpage provides several great ideas for developing a thesis as well as provides examples. There was not as much information as I had thought there might be, but the information provided was useful and to-the-point.

How to Find Sources

• Reliable and Unreliable Sources
• Biology

Finding resources can be overwhelming at first. With all the information that is out there, how are you supposed to know where to find all of it? The first place that you should go to is your local library and searches their online databases for the specific topic that you are working on. A great database to use in the field of biology is PubMed. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ It has over 11 million documents, some with full text that you can view. Another very broad database is the Biological and Agricultural Index Plus. It has a great variety of full text sources that one can utilize. Another database that you can search from your own home is called. EurekAlert! http://www.eurekalert.org/ This site is regularly updated and includes links to article and databases dealing with science and technology.

• Internet sources

If you want to do a simple internet search on your topic, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind. Make sure that it is a scholarly website, primarily .org or .edu. Make sure that the author is credible. If the article isn’t peer reviewed, do a background check to make sure the author is trustworthy.

If you are stuck and can’t find any sources, try checking the bibliographies of the books you already have. These usually contain relative information on the topic that you are researching and should provide a good starting point to lead you to other sources. If all else fails, just ask a librarian. They will be more than happy to assist you in finding information for a topic. Even if they don’t have the information in the library, they will either order it for you or send you to a place where you can get it.

• Search Engines
• Business Journals

APA

• Citing Sources

Citing Sources using APA*

In APA, the works cited list at the end of a paper is called "References." The order, punctuation, and capitalization of the information in a citation are all very important, so here are general guidelines for citing sources using APA.

Listing a Publication’s Author(s) Authors are listed by last name and first (and possibly middle) initial, followed by the year of publication in parenthesis. Up to six authors may be listed in this format, placing “&” before the last author’s name. For something with more than six authors, the first six should be listed followed by “et al.” which means “and others.” If the author is unknown, the title of the publication is written before the date of publication.

Capitalization of Titles In APA format, only journal titles follow traditional capitalization techniques. For all other titles, only capitalize the first letter of the first word of a title (and subtitle), proper nouns, and the first word in a title to come after a colon or dash (excluding hyphenated compound words.)

Citing a Book Author, X. Y. (Publication Year). Title of Book: Subtitle. Publication City: Publisher. —For a book with an editor, the editor’s name is written in parentheses after the book title, followed by “Ed.” (or “Eds.”)

Citing an Article in a Periodical Author, X. Y. (Year). Title of Article. Name of Periodical. Volume(Issue). Page-Range.

—If the article being cited is a letter to the editor, this is indicated by adding “[Letter to the Editor]” between the title and the name of the periodical. —If a review is being cited, the title of the review is given followed by “[Review of the book]” and the book title.

Citing an Electronic Source Author, X. Y. (Date of Update). Title of Document on Site. In Title of Website. Retrieved Date of Access, from URLofWebsite.com —If there is no date of publication, it is replaced by “(n.d.)” —For an article from an online periodical which also appears in a printed journal, “[Electronic Version]” is added after the article title. —If the source is obtained from a university program’s website, include the program name in the “Retrieved” statement.

Article from Database Author, X. Y. (Date of Publication). Title of Article. Name of Periodical. Volume(Issue). Pages. Retrieved Date of Access, from Database Name database (Document number).

For more specific and in-depth guidelines, and to view citation examples within each category, go to http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/

• Adapted from

Hacker, D. (2007). A writer's reference (6th ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins. and from Neyhart, D. & Karper, E. (2008, April 9). APA formatting and style guide. In The owl at Purdue. Retrieved April 10, 2008, from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

• Formatting
• Links
• Citing In-Text

CMS

• External Links