LibGuides: Archmere Academy Library: 5. WRITE

Starting to Write

"A word after a word after a word is power."

- Margaret Atwood

Yes, I know that quote up there pertains more to writing fiction, but it's true that if you don't start to write, you won't write. Even though writing research papers is very different from writing novels, you still need to get words on the page. And once you get words on the page, more words will follow.

Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start)...organize your information! Using outlines, you can begin to structure the information you've collected to highlight what you have to support your thesis. After establishing an outline, you incorporate your sources into a rough draft. This rough draft might need to be re-worked or completely re-written - don't despair! Your teachers are here to help you throughout the process, and the librarian is available to help as well.

THE THREE PARTS OF THE RESEARCH PAPER

This website has a lot of helpful information about writing a history research paper. It is aimed at college students, but applies equally well to high school students. I'm sure there are no spoilers here: you need the INTRODUCTION, the BODY of your paper, and the CONCLUSION.

"Introduction structure", https://essaypro.com/blog/essay-introduction

"Example body paragraph", https://library.aut.ac.nz/doing-assignments/essays

"The image adapted from Bid4Papers.com", https://mystudentvoices.com/17-cool-resources-to-fall-in-love-with-academic-writing-dfebb4c668c3

Research Paper Outline Example

You can decide how detailed your outline should be. Again, an outline is another tool to get your thoughts and findings in order. It may even be a step in the process that your teacher assigns you. Once you've decided on your paper's subject, you want to write down all of the ideas you want to discuss, organize related ideas into groups, and then think about the most important information you want the reader to know. That information should go first, and you should build the rest of the paper from there, making sure you end your paper effectively. Below is an example:

Topic: Measles and the vaccination debate

Introduction
1. Definition of measles
2. Rise in cases in recent years in places the disease was previously eliminated or had very low rates of infection
3. Figures — number of cases per year on average, number in recent years. Relate to immunization
DANGERS OF MEASLES
1. Symptoms and timeframes of disease
2. Risk of fatality, including statistics
3. How measles is spread
PREVENTATIVE MEASURES AND RECENT DOUBTS
1. Immunisation procedures in different regions
2. The immunization debate, addressing two sides: why immunization is recommended and why there are groups questioning its validity
  1. Different regions, focusing on the arguments from those against immunizatio

IV. CONCLUSION

Summary of arguments of different groups
Summary of figures and relationship with recent immunization debate
Concluding statement based on gathered data
1. Which side of the argument appears to be correct?

From Courtney Gahan, "Research paper outline", Scribbr, 2020.

Quoting Example

Quoting

Example from plagiarism.org:

Original

In his essay, “United Shareholders of America,” Jacob Weisberg insists that “The citizen-investor serves his fellow citizens badly by his inclination to withdraw from the community. He tends to serve himself badly... by focusing his pursuit of happiness on something that very seldom makes people happy in the way they expect it to.”

Summary

“He tends to serve himself badly...by focusing his pursuit of happiness on [money].”

The brackets around the word [money] indicate that you have substituted that word for other words the author used. To make a substitution this important, however, you had better be sure that [money] is what the final phrase meant -- if the author intentionally left it ambiguous, you would be significantly altering his meaning. That would make you guilty of fraudulent attribution. In this case, however, the paragraph following the one quoted explains that the author is referring to money, so it is okay.

From "Quoting Material", Plagiarism.org, 2017, https://www.plagiarism.org/article/quoting-material.

Paraphrasing Example

Paraphrasing

Example from Scribbr.com

Original passage

“The number of foreign and domestic tourists in the Netherlands rose above 42 million in 2017, an increase of 9% and the sharpest growth rate since 2006, the national statistics office CBS reported on Wednesday” (DutchNews.nl, 2018).

Paraphrased version

According to the national statistics office, the Netherlands experienced dramatic growth in tourist numbers in 2017. More than 42 million tourists travelled to or within the Netherlands that year, representing a 9% increase—the steepest in 12 years (DutchNews.nl, 2018).

From Courtney Gahan, "How to Paraphrase Sources", 2020.

Summarizing Example

Summarizing

Example from Long Beach City College WRSC:

Original “The Northern Lights”
"There are times when the night sky glows with bands of color. The bands may begin as cloud shapes and then spread into a great arc across the entire sky. They may fall in folds like a curtain drawn across the heavens. The lights usually grow brighter, then suddenly dim. During this time the sky glows with pale yellow, pink, green, violet, blue, and red. These lights are called the Aurora Borealis. Some people call them the Northern Lights. Scientists have been watching them for hundreds of years. They are not quite sure what causes them. In ancient times people were afraid of the Lights. They imagined that they saw fiery dragons in the sky. Some even concluded that the heavens were on fire."