The Research Process

search, v.t.: go through and examine carefully; explore; probe; penetrate; look for, seek
search, n.: process of searching; investigation

(The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary, eds. Albert and Loy Morehead (NY: Signet, 1995)

WRITE, yes, WRITE, to discover: what you already know, what passages of the primary source intrigue you and why, what questions you have.

Write your own preliminary analysis of primary materials.

Write to focus, perhaps re-focus elsewhere.

Hot Tip: Choose only 2-3 interesting passages to pose questions about, ensuring a narrow focus. Otherwise you will be quickly overwhelmed with the amount of sources on a large topic like "child abuse" and will either cry or randomly choose 3-4 sources. 

With preliminary analysis of three interesting passages in an essay-all of which hint that children who are abused exhibit violence in their pretend play-you might ask a focused research question such as: "How exactly does child abuse affect the fantasy life of the child? Does it influence the child's fantasy life when he/she grows? Does the child use fantasy to pretend he/she isn't being abused, or to imagine aggression against the abuser?" With a narrow series of questions and keywords ("child abuse" "fantasy," "aggression") you might find a manageable amount of sources for the scope of a 5-7 page paper. 

If you have a rediculous amount of materials come up in IRIS or a library index, narrow your scope. DO NOT waste time by randomly reading sources.

Develop an outline of main points that you want to make or explore further.

You will be less likely to plagiarize or rely too heavily upon secondary sources if you have already completed:

• some written analysis
• some further questions about the primary source or topic under study
• some outline of main points you wish to make or know more about
• brainstorming key words and subject categories while you are writing your preliminary analysis.

Use a discipline-specific database that the library subscribes to, which you can link to from home or campus with your library card number and PIN.

Sort through and narrow secondary sources.

Use IRIS and obtain relevant books. 

(Do this early enough to allow time for an interlibrary loan.)

Understand the difference between the library search engines and WWW search engines. Example

Allow time to digest, evaluate, and question your secondary sources.

Write how these sources dialogue with the points on your outline.

Keep source's page numbers in the text of your discussion, so you're not hunting for the page later.

In your notes, clearly mark what is a direct quote and what is a paraphrase to prevent unintentional plagiarism.

Complete the research process by "chaining": follow the cited materials in secondary sources to their point of origin.

Digest, evaluate, question, analyze the new sources that you obtain.

Write throughout the research process, in bits and pieces, until you have enough writing to assemble and make the parts cohere.

Write leisurely taking full advantage of your Word processing program's cut and paste features.

Save all files, including material you delete and paste into separate files.

Save and date all notes, free writes, and printed drafts as insurance against any plagiarism claims.

Make a paper concept map of your draft: what shape is it?

Write thesis .

Revise by cutting and pasting until you have the right concept map and paper shape-the correct logic and order.

Keep all versions of paper in separate files, and date them.

Revise thesis.

Make a retrospective outline and be sure that your points begin and end each paragraph.

Ensure that sources are used to support not supplant your assertions.

Check paper and paragraph structure .

Revise.

Write introduction .

Revise style .

Prepare citation page.

Library Databases

Research Guides