Documentation & Citation | Sample Assignments | Additional Resources
Research Skills
Students may well think that the verbs "to research" and "to google" are synonymous. As they enter the academic community, they are often unprepared for the kinds of research that they are asked to do. If you require students to use sources in their writing, you should be sure to explain what kinds of sources you are expecting. Students may never have used an online database to search academic periodicals; they may not recognize the difference between a web page that ends in “.edu” and one that ends in “.org”.
As you design your assignments, consider allowing class time for discussion of research skills that will help your students become better scholars. Some SAGES instructors recommend taking students to the library and asking them to work with a reference librarian on a specific project.
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Documentation & Citation
In addition to the resources available in The Everyday Writer or other writing handbooks, you might consider providing students with targeted information about documenting their research processes. Beyond simple citation forms, students need to understand the purpose of documenting sources (to give credit to other authors' work, to gain credibility through the support of others' arguments, to maintain academic integrity).
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Sample Assignments
- > Kurt Koenigsberger's "Periodicals Work: Guidelines" (Word Doc) - This assignment asks students to study a year's worth of a single periodical, investigating the articles, illustrations, advertisements, and other features in order to make an argument about its "dominant characteristics and concerns."
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Additional Resources
- > The Bedford Researcher - Although research and writing cannot be reduced to a mere bundle of skills, a few compositional habits and techniques are indispensable to college writers, especially in University Seminars. The Bedford Researcher tutorials are worth a look as you plan assignments leading up to a USEM research paper. However, a model passage from the tutorial "How to Integrate Quotations into a Draft" might give one pause:
In regards to accommodating our increasingly diverse culture, Miller states that, “society senses that it needs an increasingly well-educated populace to cope with an increasingly complex society. Perhaps we are instinctively driven to answer the question, who gets into college? With a resounding: everyone” (Miller 47). Why not? It only seems logical that with a diversely growing population, standards change to accommodate the multicultural world in which we live.
Instead of advising students to emulate this passage, ask them to revise it! If you take a critical, "we can do better" approach to the tutorial, it may actually do some good.
- >Steven Krause, Associate Professor & Writing Program Coordiantor at Eastern Michigan University has developed this Creative Commons Licensed project on the Process of Research Writing. These materials can be used free of copyright, as long as you give Professor Krause credit, don't sell/make money from your use of them, and agree to share with others whatever you create with this material.
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