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The Research Wizard is designed to give you a
basic, step-by-step outline to doing college research. While
designed for student new to college research, the Research Wizard
can be useful in reminding your of the research process, as well as
helping when you are working in a new subject area. The basic
Wizard does not include a time management element, but you can click
here to use the Assignment Calculator that will help you plan your
time on a research project. Experience tells us that the
biggest problem for student researchers is the failure to allow
sufficient time to do good research, writing, and revision.
While the Research Wizard is written as a step-by-step linear map,
in reality research tends to be circular and you will find yourself
looping back to previous steps throughout the process. While
we have provided help through additional web sites, remember that
you may always consult a reference librarian for research assistance
or a writing assistant in the
Writing Center for help with outlines, drafts, the mechanics of
writing, etc.
Both versions of the Wizard are based on the original Assignment
Calculator developed by the University of Minnesota Libraries in
collaboration with the University of Minnesota Writing Center and is
used with permission.
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Step 1: Understand the Assignment |
This may seem obvious, but you should begin by
asking some questions about the assignment, such as:
What is the purpose of the assignment? What is the final
product - a traditional research paper, an oral presentation, or
some other type of product? How long should it be? Who
is the audience (which tells you how much you should expect the
reader/listener to already know about the subject)? What types
of resources are you expected to use? Must you use
scholarly
articles? Primary sources? A variety of materials?
Are web sites, found through Google or other search engines,
acceptable? When is it due?
The answers to all of these questions will guide your decisions
throughout the research process.
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Step 2: Select and Focus a Topic |
Choosing a topic may be the hardest part of the research process. Try to choose a topic of interest to you since you will be spending lots of time with the topic, especially if the assignment is a long research paper.
To get ideas you can scan current magazines and journals, keeping in mind that current topics that are new ideas are unlikely to have scholarly information about them. You could also scan the indexes of your text books or look through lecture notes to see if something your professor mentioned piques your interest.
Keep in mind that you will likely shift the focus of your research topic as you begin your research. This is especially true after the next step when you do some preliminary research. In many cases the topic is too broad and the vast amount of published material uncovered in the preliminary research will show that.
One easy way to narrow a topic is to use the journalist’s technique of who, what, where, when, and why. The what is usually the part of the topic you already have, for example, the women’s suffragette movement in the United States. This is a topic that will have to be narrowed, but by focusing on a who (say Jeannette Ranking), a where (the Western United States), when (early 20th-century) you can easily narrow this topic. You may not need to use all of the elements – the why is missing here although why women first voted in the West and first ran for office there could also be added, although probably causing you to drop the who.
And don’t forget to talk with your professor about the topic. He or she can help you narrow or broaden the topic, suggest new questions to follow, and suggest some preliminary resources.
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Step 3: Do Preliminary Research |
Now is the time to start some basic research
on your topic. The objective here is not to do completely
research your topic, but to get an overview of your topic and make
sure you have a basic understanding of the topic. That, in
turn, will allow you to complete the next several steps in the
research process.
This is not to say that you do not want to take any notes, but that
is not the key point here. Still, you will want to take notes
on general background and note key resources to read later.
In addition to making sure you understand the basics of your topic,
you should be looking for key ideas or concepts, key words that may
help your library search below, the names of key participants in
your topic, and researchers whose work is frequently cited.
All of these can be helpful in using the library.
In doing preliminary research, tertiary resources, such as encyclopedias like
Britannica or
Wikiopedia or subject specific
encyclopedias (like the online resources from
ABC-CLIO or
Oxford), or a
resource that gives an overview to current topics, such as
CQ Researcher,
are useful starting points, although you would not be citing them in
your final paper. You will also want to find some
general works in the library catalog and some articles (both popular
and scholarly) in a database such as
Academic Search Premier.
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Step 4: Write a Working Thesis |
Having done some preliminary research and
having a basic grasp of the topic, it is now time to writer your
thesis statement (sometimes called the research question).
According to a tutorial at Palomar College, "a thesis statement is a
single declarative sentence that states what you want your readers
to know, believe, or understand having read your essay." (http://daphne.palomar.edu/handbook/thesis.htm)
Thus, the thesis statement serves as a guide to your reader.
It also, however, serves as a guide to you, the writer, in two ways.
First, it should guide and focus the research you are about to now
do in-depth. Second, it should help you organize your paper
since it also serves to guide the reader. Just keep in mind
that your thesis or research question may well change as you work
through the research/writing process.
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Step 5: Develop a Research Strategy |
Before heading to the library to begin your research, you should take the time to develop a search strategy. One thing you will notice is that you are starting to repeat some of the steps that you have already been through. What are the key ideas, concepts, and words in your topic? Since most library searching is done online, it is important to understand what you are seeking. What types of materials do you need: books, scholarly articles, popular magazines, newspapers, videos, etc.? This, too, will guide you on where to search.
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| Step 6: Find, Review, and Evaluate Books, Articles, Web Sites, and Other Resources |
Finding Books, Articles, and More
To find books, articles, newspapers, and other library resources,
you will need to know what type of material you are seeking.
If you need to find books, government documents, videos, and CDs in
the library, you will need to start with the
Hiram College Library
Catalog. After finding what Hiram has available, you may
wish to increase your search to the
OhioLINK catalog.
If you need scholarly journals, popular magazines, or newspapers
articles, you will need to use a database/index. A list of all
database/indexes is available arranged either
alphabetically
or by broad
subject area (in this list, popular magazines are under General
and newspapers are under News, Weather, and Sports). If you
are looking for older scholarly journal articles, try
JSTOR.
To search the Web, you will need to use a search engine such as
Google or
Yahoo. Please note that
these search engines, as a rule, index only free web sites; they do
not include most of the library's resources.
Reviewing and Evaluating Sources
Regardless of the type of material you are using, you should review
and evaluate it based on some common-sense questions:
A Note on Taking Notes
There are probably as many ways to take notes as there are note
takers. Taking detailed, accurate notes on the material you
read, regardless of the method you choose to use, is key to good
research. At the very least, it should get you and your
readers back to the appropriate place in the resources you use.
More importantly, it should help you avoid unintentional plagiarism.
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Step 7 - Develop an Outline or Describe Overall Structure |
The outline should provide you, the writer,
with a map and a direction for writing the first draft.
Whether you choose to do a formal outline or something more
informal, the outline should give organization and structure to your
ideas and research. You will want to provide organization by
grouping related ideas together. You will need to bring order
by arranging the groups of ideas in a logical manner, usually from
general to specific or abstract to concrete.
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Step 8 - Write the First Draft |
Now it is time to start writing the first draft. Note that says first draft, not final draft. The first draft should be one of the quickest steps in the process. If not, it may be because you don't have a good understanding of what you what to say and need to revise your outline. Or it may be you are trying to write the perfect draft or revising as you go. Try to just write; you will revise later. If you are having trouble getting started, try skipping the introduction and writing the body of the paper, which you should be able to do with a good outline. The process of writing the paper should help you focus on the introduction.
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Step 9 - Conduct Additional Research as Necessary |
At this point, you may seem some "holes" in your paper that require additional research to fill. It may be as easy as finding statistical data related to a point in your paper or it may be a new aspect of your research question that requires more in-depth research. You may go back to Step 6 or use these basic links:
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Step 10 - Revise and Rewrite |
Now comes the hard part, revising what you
have written in the first draft. To do so, you will need to
take a critical look at what you have written. It is useful,
however to note what revision is not - proofreading.
Proofreading deals with the nitty-gritty details; revision looks at
bigger issues. As the Online Writing Lab at Purdue puts it "
Revision is RE-VISION." Or, to put it another way, looking
again at what your paper is really about and how it accomplishes
that.
The University of Victoria notes that in revision your concerns
should be clarity, coherence, and unity. In order to
accomplish that, the Writing Center at Ashland University points out
that you will need to add language, cut language, replace language
with better, clearer, more concise language, and move material
around. All of that is done to give you a clear, concise essay
or paper.
Remember that you do not have to do this alone. You may want
to let others read and comment on your first draft. If so, you
should consider working with the writing assistants in Hiram's
Writing Center in Hinsdale 217 (x5397). Writing assistants are
ready and able to help you in any step of the writing process.
Finally, remember that you may need more than one revision to get
the paper you really want to turn in.
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Step 11
- Put Paper, Presentation or Other Product |
The last step is to make sure everything is in its final form according to the assignment. This is especially true for papers that must be turned in to the professor. First, proofread the paper. Do not just run Spell Check! Make sure you have the title page formatted correctly. Are your notes in the proper format (APA or MLA or some other format style)? Now you should be good to go!
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