.
Research and
Writing 
What follows are several items which should help you organizer your research
and begin writing. Remember, all good things take time and effort.
You can not produce a meaningful paper without research. You can not
produce a well written paper without going through several steps of organizing,
editing, rewriting, and proof-reading your paper. Some papers will
require few drafts, others will undergo major revision and numerous drafts
before they will truly be finished.
Timeline for writing
Note Cards
To find more information on note cards and research skills see the
following:
Modern Language Association
The Write Source
| Bibliography Card
|
|
| Note Cards
|
| This organizer should be used while you are reading and gathering data. 1. Write the information you will need for citation. 2. Note important and interesting vocabulary. 3. Note page numbers of all pertinent information.
|
Research Organizer for Newspaper and magazine articles / essays / speeches/ etc. This is an organizer. It is to help you take notes while you are reading an article. If you are preparing for a research report, it does not take the place of note cards; this supplements the note card process and helps organize material for an oral response or “peer-share” session. Basic information (necessary for citation) Title Author Publication information Vocabulary
-- As you read the article note important vvocabulary terms or phrases.
These may be words you may or may not be familiar with but are characteristic
of the material you are reading. You will want to use these terms when speaking
or writing about the material in the article. Basic Information
-- Record the important people, institutionns, or incidents with which the
article is concerned. Theme
-- What is the tone of the article. WWhat is the author's intent? What
main idea or call to action is being communicated to the reader?
|
1. Any research report begins with a general topic. This must be approved by the teacher
2. The next step involves exploration. A student frequently gets lost at this step, and may spend more time than is needed exploring information that she will never use in her paper. (Trust me, graduate students and doctoral candidates have the same problem. There is so much wonderful information, so many fantastic stories, that it is frequently hard to limit one's research. However, the student who can recognize the scope of her research project - and set forth appropriate expectations for herself - will escape some of the frustration of having spent hours documenting information that will not be used in the paper she is writing under her present deadline. [Note that I used the adjective "present". If the student found a distracting topic that was facinating, it is very likely that the gathered information will be useful for future assignments. This is where note card files are very helpful as storehouses of knowledge to be accessed in the future.]
Exploration is an extended process that can be divided into three sections.
Initial exploration of a topic.
At this stage the student is looking at the topic in a broad sense and seeking
that special
Each new source needs its own Bibliography card which will present the information
needed EXACTLY as it should be presented on the Works Cited page of your
paper. The "# of Source" is should be the same for all the note cards
which are from that source. The "-1" simply marks this as the first
card (and therefore the bibliography card) for this source. 
