Table of Contents
Foreword 9
Introduction 13
Chapter 1 What Is A Research Paper? 15
Research Papers In College 16
"Types of research papers 17
The importance of timing 17
Questions To Ask Before You Begin 19
Chapter 2 Planning Your Paper 21
Choosing Your Topic 22
Narrowing a broad topic 23
The Thesis Statement 23
Thesis statement formulas 24
Example thesis statements 25
Ways To Organize 28
Brainstorming and prewriting 30
Chapter 3 Beginning Your Research 35
What Counts As A Source? 36
Conducting on experiment 36
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources 37
The Purpose Of Sources 39
Evaluating sources 40
Where To Look 43
Books are great 44
Discovering databases 45
Internet research 46
Chapter 4 Constructing Your Argument 51
Your Thesis And Beyond 51
Using evidence 52
Organizing your research 56
Considering Alternative Perspectives 58
When you encounter conflicting evidence 59
Chapter 5 Avoiding Plagiarism 63
What Is Plagiarism? 64
Obvious plagiarism 65
Paraphrasing and summarizing 65
Quoting and misquoting 68
Consequences of plagiarism 70
Citation Styles 70
MLA style 71
APA style 73
Turabian/Chicago style 74
The bibliography 76
Check yourself 77
Chapter 6 The Body Of Your Paper 79
Thinking About Writing 80
Supporting Your Thesis 82
Backing up your claims 82
Structuring Your Paper 84
How to organize your ideas 84
(Maybe) not just words 87
Research Paper Style 88
Types of sentences 89
Incorporating quotes 97
Keep in mind 100
Chapter 7 Introductions And Conclusions 103
Your Intro 103
Your hook 105
Transitioning to your thesis 112
Your Conclusion 114
Restating your thesis 115
Going over key points 116
Making it memorable 117
Chapter 8 Editing And Revising 121
The Difference Between Editing And Revising 124
Questions to ask while you are revising 124
Basic Editing Tips 126
Beyond spell-check 126
Chapter 9 Common Writing Mistakes 131
Things To Watch Out For 132
Homophones 132
The punctuation situation 135
Other writing notes 143
The Power of Less 144
The word count issue 145
Writing concisely 146
Chapter 10 The Finishing Touches 149
The Title 150
Formatting Your Paper 151
Why formatting matters 152
How to format 152
Afterwards 154
Don't stop learning 155
Conclusion 157
Author's Note 161
Glossary 165
Bibliography 171
Index 173
