Chapter 2

Explore your topic. Even within a single topic, there will be ongoing discussions that may examine it in very different ways and from many different points of view. Choose to contribute to the discussion for which you feel you have the most to say, or the most new things to contribute, or just the one for which you have the most personal interest.

Create a plan for your research BEFORE you start researching. Who can you talk to? what sort of questions might you ask them? What are some useful places where you can learn more about your topic? Resources to search, like libraries and databases? Be sure you put together some sort of system for tracking your findings BEFORE you start research, so you don’t end up with a mess of confusing information.

So. Discuss your topic with people who might have a different or better view of it than you, especially with a view towards identifying useful resources for later.

Gather information about your topic, observing or surveying it at this point rather than researching or studying it.

ONLY THEN start looking into finding sources for your research and evaluating their usefulness. Take advantage of your library’s online catalog. Also take advantage of the resources your library might have on its shelves. Browse your local newsstands and bookstores for useful resources as well. And definitely search the web for sites, articles, forums, newsgroups, wikis, etc. etc.

Record everything you look at; write down your search terms especially, and write down the sources that look promising and maybe write a sentence or two about HOW they’re useful in particular, just based on their summary.

Skim your sources to further evaluate whether they’re worth a deeper reading. Look at the title, summary, and first and last sections to learn about the content, purpose, and scope. Other elements of the document’s design will also yield information about various things.

For longer documents, also skim:

• table of contents
• index
• glossary
• works cited
• pull quotes
• author information

Mark up your sources. Take notes on them. The second time you read through them, you should have the base laid down from your first reading in place.

To focus on a specific issue within your topic, keep these things in mind while reading your sources:

• keep an eye out for specific discussions in your sources, patterns, common ideas, repeated arguments.
• see a repeated idea? probably v. important to the topic -- look into it further
• see a broad theme repeated in your sources? these sources are probably part of the same ongoing discussion.
• disagreements are important to identify, because in your own paper you’ll have to either take a side in them or find a way to reconcile them.
• take note when you see a particular name keep coming up. someone who writes a lot on a topic may well be particularly expert in it, and it’s important to keep in mind who agrees with whom, and so forth.

Be sure to decide which issues you think are interesting, and which you think are relevant, because again, your success is more assured the more interested and invested you are in your topic.

Choose your issue to write on. Is it right for you? Your assignment? Does it suit your readers and your assigned document genre? Have you got the resources to write about it? It had better.