How to Research Anything!
NOTE: Here's a printable reference page for citing sources you can print and keep.
STEP 1: Choose a topic - for an example, I'll pick: Cats are better than dogs.
STEP 2: Look up reputable, primary sites for information. "Reputable" means sites that are written by someone who works in the field, not by a random blogger or on a message board. You don't know how credible these sources are. "Primary" means sites that are the original source, and not sites that are quoting other sources. That means, NOT Wikipedia, About.com, Yahoo! Answers, or anything similar. You can use secondary sources to get started, but then find the primary sources to do your significant research. (Wikipedia usually has them listed at the end of the entry!)
STEP 3: Get ready to read and get information from at least the number of citations required. Open a word document or use index cards or scraps of paper to keep track of where you got each piece of information. I prefer to do all rough work online.
First brainstorm your own ideas, then look for supports. For each reputable primary source, write the formal citation information down right away like this: (I suggest using MLA unless told otherwise)
- Author. "Article." Website. Date on the site. Web (the word). Date Retrieved.
Keep the url too just in case you need to go back to it later - but there shouldn't be any urls in your final paper. Remember to cite photos too (here's how).
Then, in point form, jot down notes in your own words from the sources that might be useful in your paper, directly below the citation. I find it handy to open a word document beside a web document so I can see them both at once. If you use more than five words in row from any source, then put it in quotation marks or else it's considered plagiarism (even if you cite it). Like this...
STEP 1: Choose a topic - for an example, I'll pick: Cats are better than dogs.
STEP 2: Look up reputable, primary sites for information. "Reputable" means sites that are written by someone who works in the field, not by a random blogger or on a message board. You don't know how credible these sources are. "Primary" means sites that are the original source, and not sites that are quoting other sources. That means, NOT Wikipedia, About.com, Yahoo! Answers, or anything similar. You can use secondary sources to get started, but then find the primary sources to do your significant research. (Wikipedia usually has them listed at the end of the entry!)
STEP 3: Get ready to read and get information from at least the number of citations required. Open a word document or use index cards or scraps of paper to keep track of where you got each piece of information. I prefer to do all rough work online.
First brainstorm your own ideas, then look for supports. For each reputable primary source, write the formal citation information down right away like this: (I suggest using MLA unless told otherwise)
- Author. "Article." Website. Date on the site. Web (the word). Date Retrieved.
Keep the url too just in case you need to go back to it later - but there shouldn't be any urls in your final paper. Remember to cite photos too (here's how).
Then, in point form, jot down notes in your own words from the sources that might be useful in your paper, directly below the citation. I find it handy to open a word document beside a web document so I can see them both at once. If you use more than five words in row from any source, then put it in quotation marks or else it's considered plagiarism (even if you cite it). Like this...
STEP 4: Divide your ideas into 3-4 chunks, and write your thesis statement. Based on the information I found, I went with litter care, bathing, and noise as my main topics. Then use the research notes, and start writing the assignment above your research notes, but re-name the file "Final Assignment" just in case you need your rough notes again. OR open a second document beside your notes.
As you use quotations and ideas in your writing, add the in-text citation directly following each fact (just the last name of the author or the first few words from the article title if there's no author listed), and delete or mark each one from the research notes section so you know you've used it. Then, at the end, you'll be left with mainly just the citations in your research notes section. * Put the in-text citation inside the sentence with the period following the last bracket (Smith).* IF you're actually using a book, then write Print in the full citation (instead of Web), and include the page number in the in-text citation (Smith 27).
Put all the sources you used in alphabetical order under "Works Cited", and you're done! This is what it should look like when you hand it in...
As you use quotations and ideas in your writing, add the in-text citation directly following each fact (just the last name of the author or the first few words from the article title if there's no author listed), and delete or mark each one from the research notes section so you know you've used it. Then, at the end, you'll be left with mainly just the citations in your research notes section. * Put the in-text citation inside the sentence with the period following the last bracket (Smith).* IF you're actually using a book, then write Print in the full citation (instead of Web), and include the page number in the in-text citation (Smith 27).
Put all the sources you used in alphabetical order under "Works Cited", and you're done! This is what it should look like when you hand it in...
