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Chapter 12. The Research Process: Critical Essays and Research Papers. Chapter overview. Looks at two of the most common writing assignments: critical essays and research projects Examines the genres Overviews the research process - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Chapter 12
The Research Process: Critical
Essays and Research Papers
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 12 | 2
Chapter overview
• Looks at two of the most common writing assignments: critical essays and research projects
• Examines the genres
• Overviews the research process
• Follows one student as she does a project for her history class
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Critical essays
• Sample critical essays are generally short papers, ranging from 3 to 7 pages, focusing on a question or issue.
• Student must use sources to “make sense of how authorities in a field define key issues and present interpretations.”
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Research projects
• Research projects are bigger undertakings than critical essays.
• The page length for research projects tends to range from eight to 20 pages or more; students use more sources and will probably spend more time on the project.
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What are faculty looking for?
Whether writing a critical essay or research project, faculty expect you to do the following things, page 391:
• To work with your sources
• To create your own research space
• To identify the central discussion, debate, and controversies
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Sample critical essay, MLA
• Pages 392-397, “The Dilemma of Empire”
• Context: written for a course in international relations
• Assignment: analyze a set of readings and explain key differences
• The text looks at her essay and analyzes how she handled the assignment.
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Two strategies
• First, she establishes the context of issues to be discussed in the first three paragraphs.
• Second, she introduces two key terms starting in paragraph four. She then explains the purpose of her essay and explains how those terms will be used.
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Sample research project, MLA
• Chapter next presents a research project, also done in MLA style. This paper (pages 398-408) was written for a first-year writing course.
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Analysis of sample research paper
• An analysis follows that examines his strategies in the paper.
• It extends past research by applying it to new cases.
• It identifies a gap in the existing research.
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Checklist – MLA and APA style
• See the shaded box, page 410.
It points out four features common to MLA and APA.
• Double-space manuscript
• Use a one-inch margin all around
• Indent paragraphs five spaces
• Number pages consecutively, including Works Cited or References pages
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Checklist – MLA style
• Unless instructed, don’t include a separate title page; see page 410 for more details on how to format the paper.
• Insert page numbers in upper right corner.
• Begin bibliography (Works Cited) on a separate page.
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Checklist — APA style
• Unless instructed, use a cover page. See page 410 for specific details on formatting thecover page.
• Include an abstract on the next page; this is a brief summary of no more than 120 words.
• Begin the text on the third page.
• Use headers for the various sections.
• Begin references section on a separate page.
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Sample research paper, APA style
• See pages 411-418 for the sample essay.
• Notice that the paper begins with an abstract, a one-paragraph summary of the paper.
• The essay uses headers and APA in-text citations, and ends with the References section.
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Analysis of the sample APA essay
• An analysis follows, page 419.
• Early on she identifies the central issues of her paper by discussing a controversial book.
• In doing so, she establishes a sense of credibility, creates a space for her research project, and sets up a framework to organize her paper and use her sources.
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Overview of the research process
Pages 419-426 begin with five tasks:
• Defining a research question
• Finding sources
• Evaluating sources
• Making an argument
• Planning and drafting
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Analyzing the assignment
Researchers position themselves five ways:
• To provide an overview of the current thinking of experts
• To review the arguments in a controversy
• To pose and answer an important question or solve a problem
• To position your own interpretation in relation to what others have said
• To take a stand on a controversy
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Doing preliminary research
• The author suggests five places to start doing research: the Web, encyclopedias, recent books, recent articles, and people (classmates, librarians, teaching assistants, and faculty members).
• She gives her first reactions to the assignment and then after doing some research, her reflections on what she’s learned so far.
• She presents guidelines to develop a research question.
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Other key tasks
• Developing a research question, pp. 423-425
• See the list of four questions; each is followed by an explanation of its significance.
• Writing a research proposal, pp. 425-426
• Defines purpose of research and research plan.
• Does three things: identifies the topic or problem, presents a specific issue and question, and briefly sketches the research plan for how the question will be addressed.
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Working bibliography
A working bibliography is explained on pages 428. It lists the sources you plan to use in your research project. There are two advantages:
• It helps you keep track of the sources you’ve located.
• It makes it easier to prepare your Works Cited or References page later on.
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More on finding sources
• Lists information needed for each type of source: books, articles, electronic information.
• Looks at library databases, pages 428-433.
• Shows an entry from an online catalog; it’s annotated to show what some of the fields mean. Notice that you are looking at the full citation for the source.
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Two ways to analyze sources
• See page 434 for a list of four questions you should keep in mind.
• See Chapter 2, “Reading Strategies of Academic Purposes,” and Chapter 3, “Persuasion and Responsibility: Analyzing Arguments” for more “tools to examine the rhetorical situation and the arguments writers make” (434).
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Making an argument
• See page 435 for a list of four questions “to help you determine the arguments you want to make.”
• Amira writes a Statement of Purpose to help her follow her research path.
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Planning and drafting
• Amira makes an outline, pages 436-437.
• Notice that it includes enough detail to be useful, but does not use roman numerals.
• She does indent some entries to show a hierarchy of main ideas and supporting details.
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Looking ahead
• Amira now has analyzed her assignment, gathered research, and created an outline.
• Now she’s ready to start writing the paper.
• The next chapter will look at ways to incorporate sources into essays and research projects.
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Companion Student Website
• Go to the student side of the Web site for exercises, chapter overviews, and links to writing resources for this chapter:
http://college.hmco.com/pic/trimbur4e