Writing with Research

My students have been doing some non-fiction essays and I’m gonna tattle. One of my writers didn’t research their topic and ended up spouting data that just simple wasn’t true. Oops. 

Yeah, I didn’t let it slide. And it made me think of the importance and the correct methods of gathering research. Since this semester, we’ll be creating research papers, (Well, they’ll be creating research papers, I’ll be watching.) I thought a

refresher course on giving credit might be in order.

The point of research is to have the facts about a topic. Unless a topic is intensely personal, a writer will not likely have all the information that they need to fill up an entire term paper or even a five-paragraph essay. Research is the gathering of enough facts to support the statement made about the topic – thesis statement.

When collecting the data, it’s important to make a note somewhere about the origin of the data. If it is from a book, the author, title, publisher, location of publishing, and publication date should be listed along with the page numbers where the data is found. The same general information should be taken for any other source. A researcher wants to have a trail that leads back to the original source, regardless of what that source is. That way if something needs to be checked it can be found. In the same way, a reader can learn more about the topic by following the citation trail back to the original sources.

The other thing about research is that one source isn’t enough. If only one source is used, then the researcher is basically only duplicating someone else’s work – plagiarism. When several sources are used and cited, the researcher is creating his own work, basing it on the opinions and work that others have done before him. That’s the core of a correctly written research paper.

Do you research when you write or blog? What research have you done recently?