Hello and welcome to this massive review of everything we’ve covered that might help you write your Research Paper!
Let’s dive in by reviewing something very important: all the info I’ve shared with you about Writing with Sources.
In this paper, you are being asked to manage a lot of different voices, including your own. How to maintain balance, so that you don’t give too much or too little weight to an individual source? It’s necessary to identify when you are bringing in another voice. Signal words and phrases are really helpful to do that.
Signal Phrases
Here are some popular examples of signal phrases:
According to Maxwell and Hanson,…
As the 2017 IRS report indicates,…
Legal scholar Terrence Roberts offers a persuasive argument: “…”
Here are some templates for acknowledging the dominant conversation, while expanding it:
Although I grant that ____________, I still argue that ________________.
Proponents of X are right to argue that ________________. But they miss the point when they claim that __________________.
While it is true that ________________, it does necessarily follow that _____________.
On the one hand, I agree with X that __________________. But on the other hand, I still insist that _______________.
Here is a general outline for thinking about how to move through the various sources you’ve compiled:
[Author Name] has also been writing and thinking about this topic. One particularly interesting insight they have made note of is ______________.
Another way to think about this topic is to look at it from ________________’s perspective. She argues that ________________.
I was surprised to find out that this author ________________ told a story about his childhood that related directly to my topic.
See Pages 293 – 309 of They Say; I Say for a much longer list of templates.
Here’s some templates from the Incorporating Sources Tip Sheet about introducing quotations:
X states, “______”
As the journalist _____ puts it, “________”
X herself writes, “______”
In her article, ______, X maintains that “______”
X agrees/ disagrees when she writes, “______”
X complicates the matter further when she writes, “_______”
And here are some templates for explaining a quotation after you insert it into your writing:
Basically, X is arguing that ______.
In other words, X believes that ______.
In saying this, X urges us to consider _______.
The essence of this argument is that ______.
Here’s an example that uses a quotation from a source in more than one sentence:
“In Job Shift, consultant William Bridges worries about “dejobbing and about what a future shaped by it is going to look like.” Even more worrisome, Bridges argues, is the possibility that “the sense of craft and of professional vocation… will break down under the need to earn a fee” (228).
Some Frequently Used Signal Verbs
-
- acknowledges
- admits
- advises
- agrees
- asserts
- claims
- concludes
- concurs
- confirms
- criticizes
- discusses
- disputes
- emphasizes
- expresses
- hypothesizes
- observes
- offers
- opposes
- remarks
- reports
- reveals
- states
- suggests
- thinks
- writes
- etc!!
Synthesis
Synthesis is how you use points made in multiple sources to prove a point or subpoint of your argument. What do your sources agree/ disagree on? How can you put them in conversation?
This resource from the Purdue Online Writing Lab on synthesis shows examples of paragraphs that both use multiple sources, but only one puts them in conversation with each other.
Review your draft as it stands now.
-
- Do I use multiple signal phrases, instead of just repeating the same one like “X says…”
- Do I have at least one instance of synthesizing writers, even if it’s synthesizing my own voice with another writer?
- Do I discuss the “dominant conversation”
Organizing Your Paper
What kind of structure fits best with your topic? There is no one-size-fits-all way to organize a research paper, it depends highly on the field of study, tone, and topic. Here’s a review of the three big organizational structures:
Thesis-Driven. Linear in nature, feels more narrative. Straight line from intro to conclusion, and research/ arguments build on each other, like in a story or a speech. Often used in the humanities.
IMRD (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion). Privileges non-linear reading so readers can quickly get to the parts they care about. Introduction of the paper talks about the scholarly/ dominant conversation about the topic and address the research question. Later in the paper is the applicability of the results, and what further research should be done. Often found in social-sciences.
Problem-Solution. Appears in professional writing, i.e. for organizations, businesses, or politics. These papers frontload problem and have sections outlining possible solutions. Often found in business or engineering classes.
Organize your paper like a bunch of elephants trying to stay dry in a rainstorm. From Baruch College English professor Kate Eickmeyer in JTC: “Imagine that the umbrella is the thesis statement, each of the elephants is one subargument, and each elephant wears rain boots, which represent pieces of evidence that support each subargument, and a raincoat, representing your analysis.”
Elephants Checklist:
-
- Make sure your thesis isn’t too big or too small for your subarguments to hold up and fit underneath.
- Try to balance your essay’s attention to each subargument.
- Use evidence to support individual arguments.
- Don’t forget to include your own analysis of each subargument (in addition to your sources’).
- For each example or piece of evidence you introduce, explain your reasoning for how it supports that argument. If an elephant is missing her raincoat, she’ll get cold and go home, the umbrella will flop over, and all the elephants will get wet.
Citing
When in doubt if something “needs to be cited,” the answer is always.. cite. For the purposes of this course, use MLA Style: Please review this PDF on MLA style from the Baruch Writing Center.
Last name and page number in-text citations can be referred to for more details in the bibliography.
For more information about MLA Style, I highly recommend checking out this page on MLA from a well-known resource called the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab from Purdue University).
When you turn in your final paper, please attach a Works Cited: all the sources you used, including the ones from your Annotated Bibliography. No annotations are necessary this time.
And finally, review the way your paper will be graded:
Thesis/ Focus: 20% What is the point of the piece? What insights does it offer, or what arguments does it make about your chosen topic? You show us how this argument matters because it addresses a belief that needs to be updated or expanded upon, and because the argument has important, real-world consequences.
Support for your thesis: 20% You provide details that make the essay come to life, you avoid generality, you provide rhetorically persuasive reasons and evidence to support your thesis, you directly acknowledge the “dominant conversation” in our society as relating to your thesis, and you expand upon it. Images, graphs, and videos are highly encouraged but page count should be adjusted accordingly.
Integration of sources: 20% You summarize, paraphrase, and quote directly in syntactically sophisticated and ethical ways from the sources you’ve used for your research (at least 5 sources). These sources should represent a variety of perspectives and should be credible for this rhetorical context.
Organization: 10% You organize your paragraphs in such a way that your readers can clearly follow your main argument; your readers can easily follow how you develop and support that argument in each paragraph; you group information together that goes together; you use a new paragraph when you “switch gears” to a new subject, but you recognize that there can be multiple paragraphs within one “subargument,” and you use ample transition words and phrases
Style/ Editing/ Proofreading 10%
Anntoated Bibliography 5%
Process: 15% Drafts, peer review workshop and feedback, Writer’s Letter, Reflective Cover Sheet, Final Portfolio