| Gather and
Evaluate Information
As part of the prewriting stage you’ll begin to
gather and evaluate information or sources. This handout will help
you develop a search strategy for your research paper.
Your search strategy begins with your topic or research questions
as well as an analysis of your topic.
First, jot down your topic or the research questions that
you want to investigate on some scratch paper or
start
a research journal.
Now, answer the questions below based on what you already know about
your topic. Don’t worry if you can’t answer all the questions
right now. These questions aim to get you started in the researching
process. As you research, you’ll learn much more about your
topic, so you may be able to fill in more of the blanks as you begin
your preliminary research and you may devise other questions.
- What are the details of the “problem” you want to
investigate?
- Who is the information important to?
- What unique words are associated with your topic? (Include here
abbreviations or acronyms.)
- What have other scholars said about your topic (both those you
agree and disagree with)?
- Who (individuals, organizations, societies) or what (journals,
magazines, databases) can you think of that might have information
about your topic?
- What words are likely to be found in the documents you are searching
for? Or what key words will you need to use in your searches? (Another
way of thinking about this question is what “buzzwords” or
phrases are common in your topic area. Include here synonyms for
these words.)
You now have a preliminary list of ideas to begin searching. Where
do you start? That’s a good question because researching is
typically completed in stages. You may move back and forth among the
stages,
or skip stages all together. For example, if you completed
preliminary research during the generating and refining ideas stage,
you may be able to move on to the next stage. Or, you may discover
specialized terms as you search through specialized sources that send
you back to sources that you used during preliminary research. There’s
no set time to spend in each of these stages. You may decide very
quickly on specific research questions that relate to a subject that
you know well, or you may need to complete quite a bit of preliminary
research to understand a topic you want to write about. Let’s
look at what happens during each of these stages.
Preliminary Research
During preliminary research, you’ll look through encyclopedias,
magazine articles, bibliographies, handbooks, and both generalized
and specialized reference works. Your goal is to focus your topic
and to learn more about it. Generally, these sources won’t
be appropriate for citing in your paper, but they will help you have
a fuller understanding of your topic.
General Research
During general research, you’ll look through books,general interest
journals and magazines, and Websites. In this stage, your goal
is to deepen your understanding of your topic and develop specific
questions that you can research further. These sources may or
may not be appropriate for including in your paper; you’ll have
to decide on the appropriateness of including the source for your
subject, audience, and purpose.
Specialized Research
During specialized research, you’ll examine scholarly articles
from appropriate journals, databases, government documents or
special collections, and online indexes. You may even conduct
interviews during this stage. In this stage, your
goal is clear-cut: to assemble a set of appropriate sources suitable
for your writing situation.
You’re a good way into developing a research strategy
since you’ve analyzed your topic and learned about the
stages of research; your next step is to decide what kind of
sources you’ll need. How do you know which kinds of sources
to use? Unfortunately, there’s not a perfect answer to
that question. The questions that follow will help you start
thinking about appropriate sources for your research paper. You
also may wish to consult with your instructor, check your assignment
guidelines, or chat with a librarian to find out the most appropriate
sources for your field.
- How important is currency of source materials? Or, what is “current” in
the field? (Currency in literature studies may be different
from currency in political science studies.)
- Are some kinds of sources more desirable in your field than
other sources?
- Do you need primary or secondary source materials? (Not sure
about the difference between a “primary” and “secondary” source?
See the Academic Center handout titled “Understand the
Difference: Primary and Secondary Sources”.)
- In your preliminary and general research, what kinds of sources
did those authors use? (Search their bibliographies carefully
and look for common sources. You also may want to look for
sources that provide a unique or interesting perspective on
the topic.)
As described in each of the stages, a variety of sources is
available to you to provide support in your research paper, and
your research can take place in three places: the library, electronically
and on the web, and in the field.
The questions that you’ve answered in this handout will
begin to help you develop a search strategy. Which kinds of sources
you use may depend upon your assignment or your field. But more
than anything else, they will depend upon the answer to the following
question:
What kind of sources would my audience find acceptable and convincing?
The answer to this question will affect the kinds
of sources you look for during the general and specialized research
stages.
From here, this handout splits into several individual handouts
that cover some of the sources that many students have the most
difficulty finding and evaluating.
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