Writing 10, Mods 1,2 and 3,4 Tuesday, March 23, 2010

RESEARCH PROJECT – Works Cited

Your works cited list should appear at the end of your paper and contain all of the source document information from the sources you used.  Each source should have the source number (that corresponds with the source card and the parenthetical references in your text), the author, title and source type, publisher, location of publication, date published or accessed, and a URL.

Works Cited

(1)   O’Hara, Julie, The Defense of Europe (book), Holt Publishing, New York, 1989

(2)   Library of Congress, World War II Texts (webpage), Library of Congress, accessed on 3/5/10, http://www.loc.gov/wwiitexts.doc

Writing 10 Mods 1,2 and 3,4 Monday, March 22, 2010

RESEARCH PROJECT – CITATIONS

As you prepare to start your first drafts, we need to clarify the need for and use of citations.  Citations are the way that you track the source of each piece of information you use, which allows others to recreate your research.  This is important for researchers, but also for the people who use research, allowing them to determine the validity and competence of the ideas and information.

There are three citation vehicles that you need to understand, the text citation, the parenthetical citation, and the works cited list.

The text citation is used to identify the source of information as part of the text itself.  It will often use quotation marks and contain phrases like “According to …” 

Here are some examples:

“According to Hitler’s maid, he spent fifteen minutes every morning quacking like a duck to stretch his vocal cords.” (1, pg 78)

In a 1934 speech to the Ladies of Bavaria Quack Aficionados, Hitler promoted the benefits of regular quacking in saying, “A quacking a day keeps the doctor away.” (2)

The parenthetical citation is the vehicle used to link a piece of  information or an idea to the document source from which it came.  Whenever you use a piece of information or idea you must cite it with a parenthetical citation.  For our purposes, this simply means you need to include the source number in parentheses at the end of the sentence in which you used the information.  If you use several pieces of information from one source together, you do not need parenthetical citations at the end of each sentence.  Rather, a single parenthetical citation at the end of a paragraph or section will do, but be sure to use text citations in the paragraph or section for clarity.

Tomorrow we will go over the Works Cited list.

Writing 10 Mods 1,2 and 3,4 Tuesday March 2, 2010

WRITING/RESEARCH PAPER

Today we talked about moving from sources to notes. Below are the examples of the note cards we did in class followed by links to the actual source and the research question which the information helps to answer. Each note should have a tag that connects it to a source and a tag that connects it to a question. Remember to quote and paraphrase. Provide page numbers where appropriate.

http://www.rbs2.com/humres.htm

Research Question: How do people feel about medical experiments on humans?

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/poison_gas_and_world_war_one.html

Research Question: What was the nature of World War I?

As you begin the actual research, please keep some things in mind:

1. You will actually have to READ your sources! Many have tried to complete the research project w/o reading and learning anything. They have not been successful. Remember my first statement, “Attitude. Attitude. Attitude.”
2. Follow the process. Develop questions that need to be answered to prove your thesis. These questions will act as a filter for you to choose the information that is important and discard the information that is not. Organize your information in a thinking map as needed. Review your questions and logic as you learn more about your topic. You may need to adjust or tweak your ideas and approach.  Collect information in notes that help answer the questions.
3. Your first 20 note cards are due on Monday.
4. Advocate for help if you need it.

Writing 10 Mods 1,2 and 3,4 Tuesday February 23, 2010

RESEARCH PROJECT – Researching the Topic/Developing Research Questions

HOMEWORK: For Friday, please have your first five source cards and at least three research questions.

Once you have a thesis statement, you then need to develop research questions.  These will help you focus your search for information and organize what you find.  Your questions will likely develop into the very categories that you use to organize the paper.

Developing research questions requires you to break up your thesis statement into its various parts.

Take this thesis:

Global warming is having an impact on many of the Earth’s systems.

What are the questions that must be answered to prove this?

• What is global warming?
• What is a system?
• What are the systems of the Earth?
• Are all systems impacted?
• Are all systems impacted equally?
• How are individual systems impacted?

Once you have some questions, organize them into a tree map.

Writing 10 Mods 1,2 and 3,4 Tuesday February 23, 2010

RESEARCH PROJECT – Source Notes

Please see the picture below for an example of how a Source Card/Note should look.  The kinds of information that you collect will vary from source to source, but here is a list of information that should be included in almost all:

• Author
• Title
• Type of Source
• Published by whom and where
• Date
• URL (if online)

 

Writing 10, Mods 1,2 and 3,4 Monday February 22, 2010

RESEARCH PROJECT

We are beginning the Research Project.  You will be spending the next eight weeks (or so) choosing and researching a topic related to either World War I or World War II.  You final paper should be between four and six pages.  I will be walking you through the process and posting examples of what we do each day on the website, so please check here for reviewing the task and its parts if you get stuck.

Please see the due dates below.

Research Paper Due Dates

• Topic and Thesis statement – 2/23/10
• Five Source Notes – Due 2/25/10
• First 20 Notes – Due 3/5/10
• Second 20 Notes – Due 3/12/10
• Tree Map/Third 20 Notes – Due 3/19/10 – (YOU WILL MOST LIKELY NEED MORE THAN 60 NOTES)
• Rough Draft – Due 3/26/10
• Second Rough Draft – Due 4/9/10
• Final Draft – Due 4/16/10

GRADES: Meeting each due date will earn you a 100% homework grade in addition to the grade you get for the quality of the work.  In addition, you will receive a regular essay grade for the second rough draft and the final draft.  Please note that the marking period ends on April 7th, so the final few grades for this paper will be entered in the last marking period.

HOMEWORK: You should have a Topic and Thesis submitted via the comment feature for tomorrow.

Please note that a research paper of  this size is a complex task, and the process can be confusing.  You need to advocate for help (that does not mean the day it is due) and be able to manage your anxiety.