Success Center Tips For Writing A Research Paper - Southwestern Illinois College

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Success Center Tips for
Writing a Research Paper
Develop a writing context
Formulate a question about your topic or problem (exigence) that you want to explore and
that readers will care about
Strive to enlighten your readers’ thinking with your research question
Use your research question to develop a thesis statement that provides readers with a clear
sense of your writing purpose
Conduct source evaluations to determine the reliability of sources
Assess the currency of the publication date to determine up-to-date information
Determine the relevance of the source to your topic and writing purpose
Examine the qualifications of the author and publisher to determine the basis of their
authority
Look for accurate references, links, and other supporting evidence
Discover the author’s purpose and evaluate the associations he/she has with special groups
to determine the presence of bias
Evaluate digital sources critically
Check the domain (.org, .edu, .gov, .com, .net, .mil) to answer questions about purpose and
authorship
Ask questions about the author’s perspective
Evaluate information gathered from field resources
Determine the relevance and accuracy of interviews, correspondence, surveys, and
observations
Read, analyze and synthesize source material (enter the conversation of experts); take notes
Prepare a summary
Determine what is important in one sentence using your own words when you want to
shorten source material to record only the general point the author makes
Paraphrase when reading complex ideas to record the main points of each paragraph
Use your own words without changing the meaning of the ideas and reduce the original
information by about one-third, but cover all of the main points.
Record someone else’s exact words accurately inside quotation marks
Document your source inside parentheses at the end of each sentence for whatever you
summarize, paraphrase, or quote

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