Writing with Style Writing and Style Manual 
Poway Unified School District

WRITING THE RESEARCH PAPER

Topic selection | Note taking | Bibliography cards | Note cards | Computer notes | Handwritten notes | Paraphrasing | Plagiarism | Outlining

Topic Selection

The form of your research depends on your audience and purpose.  If your teacher asks you to give a one-minute speech on “weapons used during World War II” to provide the class with background knowledge, then your topic, audience, and purpose have been determined for you.  If you decide to research chemistry departments at West Coast colleges for yourself, then your research process will probably be very different.  However, there are some general guidelines for topic selection:

Select an interesting topic 

Find a way to write about something that interests you.  If you’ve been given a topic, try to find an original angle.  If you’re choosing your own topic, you might start by brainstorming questions that you’d like answered or topics you want to know more about.  You also might want to reflect on current controversies, look over your lecture notes, or skim through your textbook to get more ideas.  

Think about your topic

Before running to the computer and typing your topic into a search engine, think about what you already know and what you need to find out.  Are you interested in the who, what, when, where, why, or how of the issue?  Do you know where to look to find that information?  See also the section on Types of Sources.  

Do preliminary research

Discover what sources and information are out there BEFORE deciding on a final topic.  You may discover that there’s too much or too little information on the topic you have chosen.  You may also discover that there aren’t enough reputable sources from which you can draw.  See the section on Evaluating Sources. 

Revise and/or limit your topic  

Now that you know what information is out there, make sure your topic fits your purpose.  You might have to expand or contract your topic depending on whether you’re writing a business proposal, a persuasive speech, or an eight-page essay.  At this point, it’s appropriate to write a research question or a preliminary thesis statement that will guide the rest of your research.  

Research, draft, and refine your thesis statement    

Once you have decided what angle you are planning to take as you write your paper, you will continue to research, looking for the answers to your questions and for information that will support your preliminary thesis. At this stage, you will be taking notes on your research and starting to group your information into main ideas. See the section on Note taking for more on how to do this. As you find more information, you may need to make your thesis more specific. See the section on Thesis Statements for more on how to do this.  

| top of page | 

Note taking      

Once you find good sources, you should begin taking notes.  Some teachers require students to use one particular note-taking method to ensure that they have research tools for future assignments.  However, whether you’re jotting notes on napkins or on your laptop, the following guidelines are the same: 

• Include a key word or phrase as a topic or “slug” so you’ll remember what you were thinking when you wrote down the information.  
• Include the source name or number (see Bibliography Cards) as well as the page number where you found the information.  This should make parenthetical documentation easy when you sit down to write.  You will need to cite your sources, even if you paraphrase someone else’s ideas.  
• Use quotation marks whenever you copy information word-for-word.
• Only write down relevant information.  Your goal isn’t to fill a note card quota. 
• Use ellipses (…) whenever you leave words out of a quotation.
• Use [square brackets] whenever you add or change words to clarify a quotation.

Documenting Sources

It’s important to write down all of the relevant bibliographic information for each source before you return it or forget where you found it.  You will need this information later when you cite your sources in your paper.  If you are taking notes on a sheet of paper or on your computer, write this information at the top of each page or section and start a new page for each source. If you are using note cards, make a separate bibliography card for each source.

| top of page | 

Bibliography cards

A bibliography card lists the publishing information of each source in MLA format on a separate note card.  This information will be used for your Bibliography or Works Cited page.  Number your source cards and use these same numbers in your research notes to efficiently match your notes to your sources. 

| top of page | 

Note cards

Using 3x5 or larger note cards allows researchers to write down information whenever and wherever they find it and then to organize that information by rearranging the cards.  Traditional note cards include noted information, plus the source number (taken from the bibliography card), page numbers, and a key word (or slug).   

| top of page | 

Computer notes

Some researchers prefer to take notes on the computer since they can type more quickly than writing longhand and since the “cut and paste” feature allows them to chunk and rearrange their information (just like note cards).  This method has its advantages and disadvantages. 

Computer notes are saved in one place and are ready to insert in paragraphs later.  However, this method assumes that researchers have computer access whenever they sit down to read and write.  It also assumes that the computer won’t crash, leaving no notes at all.  If you decide to use computer notes, don’t forget to include keywords and source information, and beware of plagiarism. See the section on Plagiarism for more on how to do this. 

Sample Computer Notes

| top of page | 

Handwritten Research Notes

You might have learned how to take Cornell Notes during lectures, and the same method can be used for taking research notes.  These notes are written on the right hand side of a regular-size piece of paper, and the “slug” and other notes are written on the left side.  This note-taking method gives the researcher more space to write commentary and is an alternative to writing on note cards.  The disadvantage of this method is that the information is not easy to rearrange, but this arranging can be done during the drafting process. 

Sample Handwritten Research Notes  

Daunt, Tina.  "A War on Soda and Candies in Schools.  "Los Angeles Times.  26 August 2001:  B-1.

| top of page | 

Paraphrasing

There are two ways of taking notes on someone else’s work: quote the source directly or paraphrase it.  Paraphrasing is not a play-by-play retelling of everything that happened in a selection and is not just a process of substituting synonyms for the words of the original.  A paraphrase captures a source’s main ideas in your own words yet is more detailed than a summary.

Here are some guidelines for paraphrasing: 

•  Only include the essential information.

•  State important ideas clearly and concisely.

• Use quotation marks around key words or phrases taken directly from the source.

•  Arrange the ideas in a logical order that’s easy for the reader to understand.

•  Do not plagiarize.

Paraphrasing The Purdue University Online Writing Lab has a number of pages that explain how to paraphrase, site sources and complete research papers.   See http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

| top of page | 

Plagiarism

According to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Fifth Edition, “Plagiarism is the act of using another person’s ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source.  The word comes from the Latin word plagiarius (‘kidnapper’)” (30).

Plagiarism includes

• cutting and pasting from the internet (or any other source).
• copying word-for-word without using quotation marks, even if you give a source citation at the end of your sentence.
• lifting particularly apt phrases from the original and including them in your writing without quotation marks, even if you give a source citation at the end of the sentence.
• replacing a few words with synonyms but keeping the basic sentence structure (syntax) the same, even if you give a source citation at the end of your sentence. This “plug-in” method of paraphrasing is STILL plagiarism because you are stealing the original sentence structure.
• paraphrasing information but not using parenthetical citations to indicate its source within the text of your paper.  Simply providing a list of sources in a bibliography at the end of your paper is not enough, because the reader has no way of knowing which information was taken from research and which was original.  

Original Passage

Escucia added, “When you have this marketplace of junk and soda everywhere else, it undermines the good habits that parents are trying to instill. Frankly, schools should not make an unhealthy alliance in order to seek profit. That is not the purpose of a school."

Source: Daunt, Tina. “A War on Soda and Candies in Schools.” Los Angeles Times. 26 August 2001 : B-1.

Plagiarized Passage

When people sell junk and soda everywhere, it ruins the good habits that parents are trying to teach their children. The purpose of a school is not to create an unhealthy alliance in order to see profits.

Acceptable Use (NOT plagiarism)

According to California State Senator Marth Escucia, sponsor of a bill to eliminate junk food sales in schools, selling soda “undermines the good habits that parents are trying to instill.” She believes that ”schools should not make an unhealthy alliance [with soda companies] in order to seek profit” (qtd. in Daunt B-1).  

| top of page | 

Outlining  

Outlining helps writers to organize their research and their ideas before and during drafting. 

A working outline might start off as a simple list of ideas that are chunked together into groups.  This outline should evolve throughout the research and writing process as the researcher discovers new information and narrows/expands the research topic.   Some writers like to create this outline after doing preliminary research so that they can use key words from their outline as the key words on their notecards.

Sometimes your teacher may give you a form or a list of required elements that your paper must contain.  Use this list as the basis for your working outline.  See the section on Writing on Demand for more information on how to turn a paper prompt into a working outline. Sometimes you have a working thesis or focus statement before you start writing your paper.  Use this statement to determine the main ideas for your outline.  See the section on Main Ideas and Support Theses for more on how to turn your thesis statement into a working outline.

Working Outline Example  

A formal outline uses Roman numerals, capital letters, numbers, and lower-case letters to indicate main ideas and subtopics.  A formal outline is often required after research has been completed and before drafting begins. 

In addition, parallel structure is required.  A sentence or an outline is parallel if it expresses all the items in a list in the same grammatical form.

Formal Outline Example

Updated 06/23/03 by D.Hogan
Poway Unified School District
©February 2003