Some of us have the good fortune of taking a research paper class in high school—preparing us for the inevitable assignment in college. But if you are not so fortunate, here are a few suggestions and guidelines to use for writing your first research paper:
UNDERSTAND THE ASSIGNMENT
Read it through a couple of times. Highlight key words—any main prompting words and any action words.
CHOOSE a WORKABLE PROMPT/TOPIC
Most instructors offer more than one option for a research paper. If you have a choice, decide which prompt you will do according to which you want to do, that which you have interest in. You must do what interests you--otherwise you will be miserable through the researching and writing phases and your reader(s) will be miserable reading it.
What if you don’t care for any of the options? Force one choice to work for you: one man I worked with years ago could not see writing a 30-paged paper on women in California history, but he kept at it until he came up with a most original approach: writing on women as whores/prostitutes during the Gold Rush. He loved the work and his readers were riveted.
As often happens in college courses (especially the larger lecture courses), you get no prompt or only a vague one (to write forty pages on any relevant topic, say).
Ask yourself questions—pursue the answers.
Follow your curiosity—one concern you have will lead to many areas, and subsequently to many focused ideas.
Ask friends/other teachers their opinions.
Look into the Library of Congress Subject Headings, a huge book with a zillion subjects and their related subcategories, or go online to a subject index such as www.interconnected.com, a site that gives you 100’s of possibly related topics when you type in one word.
DECIDE ON A MODE—Many instructors will tell you to “compare and contrast” or to “prepare a statistical analysis,” for example, but for those assignments that are more general, you must decide yourself how to set up the paper, how to format it. Depending on the class and your angle of approach, you may use an argumentative, problem/ solution, compare/contrast, analysis, narrative summary and interpretation, or combination of two or more of the above, for instance.
If you are not given a mode, you need to decide upon/establish a format. Break your paper into organized segments, setting up a format for your paper with, for example, the assets and liabilities…, or the spiritual/emotional/physical/intellectual changes…, or x number of decades…, etc..
NARROW YOUR FOCUS/TOPIC--Make sure your topic is manageable. Writing about Nazism in ten pages will not be sufficient space to cover everything needing coverage; the five most heinous medical atrocities practiced on men at Auschwitz will.
DEVELOP A WORKING THESIS--While you search for topics/themes that interest you, and later, as you narrow the topic, you will have to come up with a point, a main point, so the paper doesn’t just hang there with a bunch of facts/ideas stacked on it.
Ask yourself those curious questions—then answer them. The answer(s)—written down in complete sentence(s)—will be your thesis statement(s).
Consider what if scenarios. Your guesses—a.k.a. your hypothesis/es—will become your thesis statement(s).
Consider what your colleagues/peers/friends/family members experts think about the topic at hand. Do you agree? Go with their opinion as your thesis statement. Do you disagree? Go with your position, then, turning it into a thesis statement.
Consider the assignment. Does it ask you, specifically, to answer a question? Your answer, once you add up all of your research/ideas/ observations, should equal a complete statement.
WRITE and/or SUBMIT AN OUTLINE
I promise it helps to have a set of sub-topics you can write down and post next to your desk or pc, referring to the outline as you go so you stay focused…anchored.
COLLECT RESOURCES
Use a combination of books, periodicals, professional/academic journals, surveys or polls, the Net, interviews; the World Wide Web (being careful to use reliable sources), media materials—audio/video/ newspapers/microfiche/microfilm. (Ask for help using and citing all of these.)
DO A BIBLIOGRAPHY-immediately! Before you read any thing or person thoroughly, write down the source’s information. This is vital, as if you forget and write the paper and do the bibliography last—after your human sources have gone or you have returned written materials or left Internet links long ago—you will be missing dates, names, titles, and page numbers you need for accuracy.
READING and TAKING NOTES for a RESEARCH PAPER
When reading a piece for a paper, you are reading “to take” away something you need. Do not read whole books. No time for that.
1. Read the table of contents (in front)-find key words, ideas, people, related to your paper, and read just that /those chapter/s.
2. Use the index (in back), seeking out only key themes/phrases/words that apply to your research.
3. Look at each book’s bibliography/works cited page/s [at very end of book/article] for suggested sources.
Cite your source every time you use direct (word-for-word) quotes. Cite your source every time you do not use direct wording but do use any fact/theory/date you did not come up with yourself (indirect quotes).
DRAFT THE PAPER
Use the same components in a research paper that you would in an English assignment (using headers in the scientific/psych. experiment papers):
Use clear appropriate diction, and a scholarly/mature tone
Use an engaging opener/ introduction.
Use a complete, thoughtful, fresh and original thesis.
PROOFREAD/REVISE THE PAPER-
Follow a revising/editing checklist, or craft one of your own to follow: make sure you have an introduction, ample support, and a satisfying conclusion.
Make sure your paragraphs are well-ordered, your syntax (sentences) are orderly, varied, and well-punctuated.
And make sure your spelling and punctuation is clean!
You are on your way to your first research paper. Make it a great one!
Muna wa Wanjiru is a Web Administrator and has been researching and reporting on Internet Marketing for years. For more information on making space at home, visit his site at Writing a Research Paper
Publish a Book Through Print on Demand Program Publishing Agents
Many people would like to publish a book. It was a dream for many of us who had to deal with agents or Self pubishing until recently, when Print on Demand Program came to the fore; the dream seemed out of many of our grasps. Tody there are many options for someone who wants to publish a book, but it is a good idea to do a little homework before contacting a publishing company with your manuscript.
I have found that, as a pubisher you cannot overlook the Internet as a valuable resource and as a writer I find that it is a great way to find writing jobs. One writing assignment involved writing a manuscript for a publishing company. The book that I wrote is part of a series of books that address questions about specific careers. The assignment was ideal for me because I wanted to publish a book about being a therapist who works with autistic children. My topic fit the publisher’s needs and I went to work.
I completed the first draft of the entire manuscript in a record two-month period of time. I worked on the book for about six hours every day, often staying up way past midnight to get my thoughts organized into the text. I found that we would publish a book on my topic, but not in the near future. I completed the manuscript about six months ago and I just now got the contract from the publisher. I still have to read and sign the contract to get things moving.
I am pleased that I will have the opportunity to publish a book in the upcoming year, but I still have a way to go before the book hits the shelves. The editor is going to go over the manuscript on a page by page basis. I imagine that this will take a great deal of time. That is not a problem for me. I am a diligent writer and my desire to publish a book is a driving force that will keep me on my toes.
I have looked into other ways to publish a book as well but I find some of the options a little confusion. Lulu is a company that will publish a book for an author through its print on demand program. I am not sure if this is a viable option for me. I am not one for vanity publishing and Lulu seems to have some of the qualities of a vanity publisher.
For right now, I’m sticking to working with a publisher on assignment. If you want to publish a book, you may want to use a company like iuniverse.com, Lulu, infinitypublishing.com, but all said and done, if you want to publish a book that will be read, consider working with an editor.
Muna wa Wanjiru is a Web Administrator and has been researching and reporting on Internet Marketing for years. For more information on Publish a Book, visit his site at Publish a Book
5 Tips on How to Do the Daunting and Equally Challenging Task of an Employment Search
It can be a daunting experience, for many reasons, to do an employment search. Equally challenging, you might feel, is the employment search you do online. You might have caught on by now to Craigslist, but if not—or if you want to extend the search—you either start there and/ then consider the many kinds of networks and job banks and boards that fit your skill sets, income needs, and other particulars.
This can get intense. Employment searches can lead you to agencies, advice, and attitudes you feel overwhelmed by. Breathe. There’s a way to “narrow” your search, making efforts pay off, literally and figuratively.
Now, as a freelance writer, I access specific banks and boards, but my example will hopefully help you clarify your own employment search process.
1) COMPANY and LOCATION SEARCHES
Find job boards that have updated classified for employment in your area and in major companies you might be interested in working with.
For the Bay Area, for instance, Tribe (sanfrancisco.tribe.net) features a search engine and drop-down menu to look for jobs by company and category (field).
Considering your area of expertise, find the companies who employ your type, and visit their help wanted/employment search/seeking XYZ pages. For example, I consult many sites—like Pearson Education-- belonging to publishers, visit their employment/jobs section, and look from there for any gigs I might be good for.
2) CAREER SEARCHES
That is, for example, if you are a journalist, seek journalist, press, news, magazine, periodical ads at such places as NewsJobs.net, which offers postings for NewsJobs in the U.S., NewsJobs in Canada, and NewsJobs in the U.K..
In the same respect, when you do an employment search on a major search engine and are typing in different and varied words and phrases, be as thorough and thoughtful as you can. If you are a carpenter, look for more than just carpenter jobs. Type in all the variations you can think of for the word carpenter—“carpentry,” “builder,” “building,” “construction”—and all the different words you can think of for jobs—“careers,” “help wanted,” “needed,” “places for.” I found, for instance, a great publication called Places for Writers, which is not dens and coffee shops and what we would likely first think of when we read the word “places”, but which is places calling for submissions.
3) SUBSCRIBE to NEWSLETTERS in YOUR FIELD
Newsletters are one of the greatest cogs in the Internet machine. They are used by webmasters and web mistresses to get visitors to their sites, but they are—unlike a lot of advertising that drives us nuts—most valuable sources. Besides plugs for doo-dads and stuff to buy or pay for, they have advice columns, special interest sections, and calls for experts/job announcements. And they are free!
I subscribe to five different newsletters for writers. Because of those, and because I read every little box, frame, passage, entry in every one, I have garnered about 50% of the job/gig leads I followed up on and landed.
4) GO DIRECTLY to the SOURCE
Well, sort of directly. The newsletter editor is the one who runs a site that centers on your field. Visit the website. (Don’t gloss over the many links that say “click here”, in other words, no matter how many filters you have up to visually block all that linkage.) Those same writer newsletters have vested interest (creative, intellectual, financial) in doing the same work you are making an employment search for, and typically feature a job board exclusively for professionals in your field. A daily newsletter with writing leads also features high-paying and low-paying (ugh) job sections on the parent site, Freelancewriting.com. In fact, besides a super archive of articles on writing, the site is primarily one great, great (in size and quality) job bank. I have gotten at least 25% of my gigs there.
5) OPTION: NETWORKERS
Just as many other professionals care enough about humans in the workforce and getting them into that workforce that they have built businesses to connect employers with employees and free agents with clients. Yes, they usually cost something, so you might want to be the kind of person who believes that it takes money to make money. But many are quite successful at what they do. I have—in my reading and employment searching and career developing hours—read many accounts of how beneficial these networks are…networks such as ScriptLance.com, Guru.com, ELance.com, for specific types, and, for general sources, such network solutions planners as Careers.com, HotJobs.com, JobSeeker, and Jobvertise will work for you and with you to find you a job in your area of expertise, location, emotional and intellectual setting, and income bracket.
Of course, the other 25% of my income comes from doing my own employment search elsewhere: in-person networking, word-of-mouth (be good at what you do every time you do it!), and, of course, the beneficent, beneficial, benefiting and fitting Craigslist!!!!
Muna wa Wanjiru is a Web Administrator and has been researching and reporting on Internet Marketing for years. For more information on Employment Search, visit his site at Employment Search
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