Research Matters, Second Edition

Table of Contents

Part I: Preparation Matters

1. Owning your research

a. Understanding the benefits

b. Having a sense of purpose

c. Tapping personal and professional interests

d. Finding space in the assignment

e. Making room in your schedule

f. Raising questions

g. Developing confidence: What do you already know?

h. Presenting your research in an alternate form

2. Reading your sources

a. Reading to comprehend

b. Reading to reflect

c. Reading to write

Citing Like an Expert Feature: 1-2 pages on helping students use summary more and on reading whole sources

3. Exploring and sharpening your topic

a. Exploring research topics

b. Focusing your topic

c. Developing your research question

4. Developing a sense of purpose and context for your research

a. Understanding purpose, audience, and context through genres

b. Determining who cares about the topic

c. Writing purposefully

d. Knowing where the research is going

5. Writing a research proposal

a. Understanding typical components of a research proposal

b. Analyzing the rhetorical situation

c. Drafting research questions and hypotheses

d. Providing a rationale

e. Establishing methods

f. Setting a schedule

g. Choosing sources strategically

h. Developing a working bibliography

i. Annotating your working bibliography

j. Developing a literature review

k. Formatting the project proposal

Part II: Information Matters

6. Gathering information

a. Consulting a variety of sources

b. Finding periodicals using databases and indexes

c. Finding reference works

d. Finding books

e. Finding government publications and other documents

f. Finding sources in special collections: Rare books, manuscripts, and archives

g. Finding multimedia sources

7. Meeting the challenges of online research

a. Web and database searches: Developing search strategies

b. Finding other electronic sources

c. Finding multimedia sources online

8. Developing new information

a. Searching archives and primary information

b. Conducting interviews

c. Observing

d. Surveying

9. Evaluating information

a. Evaluating relevance

b. Evaluating reliability

c. Evaluating logic: Claims, grounds, and warrants

d. Evaluating online texts: Websites, blogs, wikis, and web forums

e. Evaluating visual sources

Citing Like an Expert Feature: 2 page coverage of moving students from repeating claims to evaluating arguments and choosing complex texts

10. Taking notes and keeping records

a. Choosing an organizer to fit your work style

b. Keeping the trail: Your search notes

c. Determining what to include in research notes

d. Taking content notes

e. Taking notes to avoid plagiarizing and patchwriting

11. Citing your sources and avoiding plagiarism

a. Developing responsibility: Why use sources carefully

b. Understanding what you must cite

c. Knowing what you need not cite

d. Understanding why are there so many ways to cite

e. Drafting to avoid plagiarizing and patchwriting

f. Getting permissions

g. Collaborating and citing sources

12. Writing an annotated bibliography

a. Understanding the annotated bibliography

b. Preparing the citation

c. Writing the annotation

d. Formatting the annotated bibliography

e. Sample student annotated bibliography (in MLA style)

Part III: Organization Matters

13. Writing and refining your thesis

a. Drafting a thesis statement

b. Refining your thesis

Citing Like an Expert Feature: 1 page on helping students represent source complexity

14. Organizing your project

a. Reviewing your prewriting

b. Grouping your ideas

c. Arranging your ideas from general to specific

d. Considering your project’s overall shape

e. Choosing an organizational strategy

f. Choosing an outlining technique

g. Checking your outline for unity and coherence

Part IV: Writing Matters

15. Drafting your project

a. Preparing to draft

b. Developing a title

c. Drafting the introduction

d. Developing paragraphs

e. Connecting paragraphs

f. Drafting the conclusion

g. Drafting responsibly sample student essay—first draft

h. Drafting collaboratively

16. Entering conversations and supporting your claims

a. Explaining and supporting your ideas: Reasons and evidence

b. Using visuals as support

c. Weaving it all together

d. Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing

17. Citing expertly

a. Integrating source material

b. Representing your voice

c. Providing context

Citing Like an Expert Feature: 2 pages on avoiding patchwriting and showing where sources begin and end

18. Revising, editing, and proofreading Revising globally

a. Gaining perspective

b. Revising your draft

c. Reconsidering your title

Revising locally

d. Choosing your words with care

e. Crafting grammatically correct, varied, and concise sentences

Revising with others

f. Receiving feedback

Proofreading

19. Designing and presenting your project

a. Understanding design principles

b. Planning your design project

c. Applying the principles of design

d. Designing an academic research paper

e. Presenting your research

Part V: Documentation Matters

20. Conducting research in the disciplines

a. Conducting research and writing in the humanities

b. Conducting research and writing in the social, physical, and natural sciences

21. Documenting sources: MLA style

a. Creating MLA-style in-text citations

b. Preparing an MLA-style list of works cited

c. Using MLA style for content and bibliographic notes

d. Formatting a paper in MLA style

Citing Like an Expert Feature: One page on handling indirect quotation

22. Documenting sources: APA style

a. Creating APA-style in-text citations

b. Preparing an APA-style reference list

c. Using APA style for notes

d. Formatting a paper in APA style

23. Documenting sources: Chicago style

a. Creating Chicago-style notes and bibliography entries

b. Using Chicago style for tables and figures

c. Using Chicago style for content notes

d. Formatting a paper in Chicago style

24. Documenting sources: CSE Style

a. Creating CSE-style in-text citations

b. Preparing a CSE-style reference list

c. Formatting a paper in CSE style

Appendix

Credits

Index