Drafting the Constitution Research Paper

Step One:Finding the Research!

Library:Thursday, February 2

and 3

What Are Sources?

A source is what you turn to for information about your topic.

A source can include any of the following: a book a magazine or newspaper article a scholarly journal article a film, television show, or radio program a web site a personal interview

They generally fall under print sources, non-print sources, and electronic sources.

Go to the school’s library, go to your local public library, go to ANY library.

Librarians are great people who are there to help you.

They can show you how to…

search for books on your topics; search for journal and magazine articles; use reference materials; access electronic data bases, such as

EbscoHost and Infotrac, using key word searches

evaluate web sites.

Searching on the WebFinding the Research:

Computer Lab:Monday, Feb. 6 -

Wednesday, Feb. 8

The information highway known as the Internet has potholes.

Anyone can post anything on the Internet. There are no editors or experts reviewing the

material. Yes, you can access legitimate sites like the

American Cancer Society or university research centers, but you can also access pornography, incorrect or misleading information, biased opinions, and prejudiced information.

While the Internet may provide you with some good information, your paper will be stronger for having searched many different kinds of sources.

Speaking of web sites… Even if you have Internet access on your home computer, you should still visit a library. Let’s play “True or False.”

The Internet has been called an information highway. TRUE.

It is free. It is vast. It is democratic. It is accessible 24 hours a day. Anyone can post anything.

You can believe everything you read on the Internet . FALSE.

Step 3: Gathering and Organizing the Research/FactsBegin to assemble together your initial

research materials and findings.Start by using lined notecards and begin

organizing them in relation to one another. You should start to see main topics emerge from your research.

It is helpful to sort and COLOR CODE the main topics and/or supporting details of the paper.

Color Code InformationLet’s say you were writing a science research paper,

we could use the following color codes:Background of Disease BLUEType/Description of Pathogen REDSymptoms PinkTreatment GREENPreventative Measures PURPLEMiscellaneous (Fun, interesting, insightful, and unusual facts that do not fit under required subheadings.)

BROWN

NOW:Writing Topic Sentences which Guide and Focus the Research Paper1. Review each of your color coded categories.2. Write a minimum of two to four topic sentences for each color coded subheading.3. At this point, some students find it helpful to organize topic sentences into an outline. Others prefer to write rough draft paragraphs.

Step 2:Step 2:The Importance of a First The Importance of a First

DraftDraftTechniques to Help You Start Writing

BrainstormingFreewritingClusteringUsing Drafts

I bet some of you are thinking this… “I don’t know anything about my topic—what

can I write about before I do research?”

Soooooo think about this: A good research paper comes from wanting to

know more about something. A good research paper contains facts and

quotes but these ideas must be written through the writer’s own ideas and experiences.

A good research paper is not a fact-finding mission; it is a synthesis of what you already know and what you learn in the process of your research.

Use class notes, lectures, class assignments and textbooks as starting points for gathering research.

Writing a research paper is like writing any other academic paper, with the difference that you are bringing into your essay the words, ideas, and theories of others, often experts in that field of study.

In the process of writing your research paper, you will learn a new set of vocabulary words and concepts.

What follows is a list of these words/concepts and their definitions. Becoming familiar with them will help you in the research process.

Points to Remember When Writing a Research Paper

BrainstormingBefore you begin doing any research, take

some time to brainstorm.

When you brainstorm, list everything that comes to mind about your topic, all of your thoughts and ideas, in the order in which they occur to you.

Let your mind make connections.

Write down everything—even those things which appear silly and unimportant at first.

FreewritingFreewriting is nonstop writing. Set aside

ten or fifteen minutes, and write whatever comes to you without thinking of word choice, spelling, organization, etc.

Don’t stop. Don’t get in your own way—you will be surprised what gets down on paper.

Freewriting is similar to brainstorming, in that you write what comes to you in the order it comes to you. However, rather than a list of your ideas, you develop your thoughts by having more of a conversation with yourself.

Clustering or Making a Graphic Organizer – An Alternative to

FreewritingWhile brainstorming and freewriting are ways

to get information down on paper, clustering or organizing your thoughts allows you to begin to see relationships among ideas.

To cluster/make an organizer, put the main idea in the center of the page, circle it, and list other sub-topics around it, connecting ideas that belong together with lines.

The result looks a lot like a spider’s web and will do wonders when you being to organize your paper.

The Rough DraftMost writers cannot sit down and, in one

setting, produce quality work. Most writers write in steps or stages.

The first step is a rough draft. It is the “get down” draft—where you get down your ideas onto paper. You do not need to worry yet about spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.

This first draft is also called the discovery or exploratory draft. Why? Because it is where you explore your topic and discover what you want to say about it.

Step 4: Appropriately using the facts in your paper.

An effective direct quote is brief, vivid, and in context—meaning the quote fits naturally with the writer’s own words. Choose quotes carefully. Keep them as brief as possible. Use quotes that are interesting, relevant, or necessary in the development of the paper’s main ideas. NOTE: If a writer quotes directly, he or she is not allowed to make any changes to the original words.Direct Quotation Example: According to Coach Singleton, “If any more football players get hurt, we will have to change our team colors from silver and black to black and blue.”

Using Quotations:

ParaphrasingParaphrasing is putting material (including major

and minor points) into your own words and sentence structure.

You can paraphrase a theory, an idea, the results of a study, or a passage in an original source, as long as you use your own words to describe it.

A paraphrase is often the same length as the

original, but it is in your own words.

Example of a ParaphraseOriginal Text (from James C. Stalker, “Official English or English

Only”)

“ We cannot legislate the language of the home, the street, the bar, the club, unless we are willing to set up a cadre of language police who will ticket and arrest us if we speak something other than English” (21).

ParaphraseStalker points out that in a democracy like the United States, it is not feasible to have laws against the use of a language and it certainly would not be possible to make police enforce such laws in homes and public places (21).

Example taken from Pocket Keys for Writersby Ann Raimes

What is Plagiarism?It is fine to bring the words and ideas of

other writers into your paper.

However, when you do so, you must acknowledge the writers of these sources.

If not, you are guilty of plagiarism, a serious academic offense.

The Subtle Forms of PlagiarismOther types of plagiarism are more subtle and

include any of the following:

failure to cite quotations and borrowed ideas;

failure to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks;

failure to put summaries and paraphrases into your own words.

Most students who plagiarize are simply unaware of the proper way to document sources in academic writing.

Step 5: Write a BibliographyFrom the moment you start collecting facts-

make sure to copy down all information about that source.

Author Date Published Name of the Publication Article Name Title of Book Publisher

Works Cited 

Allende, Isabel. “An Act of Vengeance.” Trans. E.D. Carter, Jr.

Literature and Its Writers. Eds. Ann Charters and Samuel

Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 66-71.

Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. Ed. Laura E. Hunt

and William Barek. May 1998. U of Toronto. 11 May 1999

<http://citd.scar/index.html>.

“The Decade of the Spy.” Newsweek 7 Mar. 1994: 26-27.

Hallin, Daniel C. “Sound Bite News: Television Coverage of Elections,

1968-1988.” Journal of Communication 49.2 (1992): 5-24.

Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago:

U of Chicago P, 1980.

on-line

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Works Cited

Navarro, Mireya. “Bricks, Mortar, and Coalition Building.” New

York Times 13 July 2001: A1+.

Russo, Michelle Cash. “Recovering from Bibliographic Instruction

Blahs.” RQ: Research Quarterly 32 (1992): 178-83. Infotrac:

Magazine Index Plus. CD-Rom. Information Access. Dec.

1993.

Sidel, Ruth. On Her Own: Growing Up in the Shadow of the

American Dream. New York: Penguin, 1990.

Spanoudis, Steve. Poet’s Corner. 2 Feb. 1998. 4 Feb. 1998

<http://www. geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems>.

Zacharias, Peter. Personal Interview. 23 Nov. 2001.

book one

author

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