Evaluating Sources: Documentation
Where does the book / article / website get its information? Look for a bibliography and / or footnotes. In a piece of writing that is making a case using data, historical or scientific...
Category: Level 3 pages
Timely Sources
Is the material up-to-date? The best research draws on the most current work in the field. That said, depending on the discipline, some work has a longer shelf life than others. For example, important...
Evaluating Online Sources
You may have seen the commercial above making a point about how you have to be careful of what you find on the internet. This is true in life and in your efforts to...
Evaluation Checklist
The Source Evaluation Checklist found below should prove helpful as you evaluate your sources. There are two versions of the checklist. The first is a printable PDF file, and the second is an interactive...
See It in Practice
Now that you have an understanding of some effective ways to evaluate sources, it’s time to check in with our student writer. In this video cast, you’ll see our student writer evaluate one of her...
Research Paper Steps
Carefully defining your research question as well as implementing and conducting research are absolutely critical to a good research paper. If you follow the suggestions for each step of the research process carefully and...
See It in Practice
In the video cast below, you’ll see a student writer exploring her research paper assignment as the first step in her research writing process. Using the sample assignment you see presented in this video...
Time to Write
Now that you have had a chance to see how you should carefully consider your assignment requirements, take some time to read and think about your own research essay assignment. What are your key...
Purpose
Rhetorically speaking, purpose is about making decisions as a writer about why you’re writing and what you want your audience to take from your work. There are three objectives you may have when writing...
Audience
Before you begin to write your research paper, you should think about your audience. Your audience should have an impact on your writing. You should think about audience because, if you want to be...