Students often focus on revising the details of their papers, when revising the organization of their papers should be the priority. Once the substance of your paper’s argument has been developed, make sure that readers will find the paper coherent.
Guide Your Research with Questions
When researching, it’s easy to get caught up in the process of research, tracking down as much information that you can find. Scholars, though, don’t document information for its own sake, but to support their research question. By asking the right questions, you can be directed to the information you need to answer them.
Finding a Research Question
When writing a paper, your first task is to find a research question that will lead to a research problem worth solving. First, find a topic specific enough to research it in the time that you have allotted to complete the project. You are looking for a right-sized question worth investigating. A thesis question, for example, should be bigger and more complex than a short undergraduate paper.
Three Levels of Critical Thinking
No matter what your stage in life, critical thinking skills allow you to think more deeply. When conducting research and writing for an academic audience, critical reasoning is required to interpret your findings.
Critical-thinking skills connect and organize ideas. Three types distinguish them: analysis, inference, and evaluation.
Active Learning Strategies
Reading Critically
When you’ve identified a source that’s of interest and relevance to your research, you should subject it to critical evaluation. As you review it, ask yourself why the work was needed, what its analysis was, and how the author interpreted the results. Most importantly, what’s your interpretation of the results?
Final Revision Checklist
How to Write a Thesis Statement
A thesis statement is a sentence declaring what your essay is going to contain. It proposes the position you are going to argue for in your paper. It presents the topic of your writing and also comments on your position on the issue. Your thesis statement provides a roadmap for you as you write your paper, and it also helps your reader follow your argument as it develops. It lets your reader have an easier time understanding your argument.
Discover Your Learning Styles
One of the best ways to improve your research methods or academic performance is to discover your learning styles. Some people favor a particular way of learning, while others find that a blend of techniques work best for them. I've also found that learning styles can change over time; what may have worked with you while you were in school, for example, may shift when you are learning in a professional environment.
Interrogating Documents with 16 Questions
When I teach my Research Methods students, I often ask them to interrogate their primary sources. When you’re working with documents—whether manuscripts from the 17th century or blog posts that were published minutes ago—you need to analyze them like detectives. Nothing should be taken at face value. Often, this means that a document may need to be read several times to unravel its meaning.