Welcome to English 221-- Writing the Research Paper (with a twist this term)!
This term will focus on the fundamentals of conducting research, creating a thesis statement, as well as learning how to write an effective research paper. This term, however, will consist of using technology and learning how to blog as well. As many of you are about to enter the workforce, the need for social media knowledge is becoming a must and can give individuals the competitive edge. Blogging is a not only a great way to fine tune and master writing research papers, but can lead to online blogging opportunities that pay!
Instead of turning in the traditional research project, it will posted online in blog format. However, the traditional citation format will still apply. Similarly, each of the stages of the paper will be also posted online.
On this blog not only will you find links to several research tools, such as Ebscohost, eBrary, and Google Scholar, as well as many handouts and a copy of the syllabus are linked attachments via Google documents. Similarly, there are links to examples of other blog research projects in order to give you an idea of what the final project, as well as the stages look like! The posts will be set to private during the stages, but I hope that once you have finished your research project, you choose to make your final post public!
I am looking forward to this term and hope that you enjoy the process of learning about writing research papers AND blogging!!
Things to know…
Academic Sources
Academic resources are a required part of the research project and are resources that have been through the peer-reviewed process by experts in the field of study. Most academic sources are studies where the author proposes a research question, sets up and conducts a survey, scientific study or questionnaire, or some other form of scientific measure, and then they conduct the study and provide the results of the study. Academic sources can found on databases such as Ebscohost, eBrary and Google Scholar, to print journals. When conducting academic searches, make sure to include peer-reviewed or scholarly articles, although beware that many of the articles are not peer-reviewed or actual studies, so make sure to check with me to make sure it is an acceptable article! Generally, academic sources are found only in databases or print journals. To find them on any of the databases, do an advanced search and select either "peer reviewed" or "scholarly article”. Some of what you find may not be an actual study but will be from a peer-reviewed journal, however, unless approval is given, resources must be peer reviewed.
Next up, the Annotated Bibliography…
An annotated bibliography is the list of sources that are cited in your project, much like the MLA work cited page or APA reference pages, however, in addition to each reference is a short description of what the article entails. Things to consider when writing an annotated bibliography include each of the following:
What are the things that make the author authorities? Are they a widely published expert, a Ph.D. student, a Professor at a university, or a member of a particular organization such as ACLU?
2.How is their research relevant to your research as well as what is the main idea or thesis question posed? In other words, what is the purpose and intent of their research and how does it pertain to your research.
Lastly, ACADEMIC HONESTY
Academic honesty is something that Pioneer Pacific College and I both take very seriously. Any work presented that is not your own original thoughts and ideas MUST be cited appropriately and credit given to the author. Plagiarism is very serious and the consequences just as serious. In order to ensure Academic Honesty, prior to the final blog posting of the research project, a copy of the project will be submitted to Turnitin.com and must meet a very strict standard of less than 10% similarity. More information will be provided in class!
