Writing Quick Start: Finding Sources

23

Finding Sources, Taking Notes, and Synthesizing

IN THIS CHAPTER YOU WILL LEARN TO

  • use keywords effectively to find sources using your library’s catalog and databases and Internet search engines,
  • conduct field research: interviews, surveys, and observations,
  • take effective notes: annotating and highlighting, summarizing, and paraphrasing information,
  • evaluate your research,
  • synthesize information and ideas from sources, and
  • create an annotated bibliography.

WRITING QUICK START

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© Peter Essick/Aurora Photos

S

uppose you are enrolled in a seminar on the environment. Your instructor gives the class a number of photographs and directs students to choose one and write a paper about the environmental issues it portrays. You’ve chosen the photograph shown here, which appeared in a National Geographic article titled “High-Tech Trash: Will Your Discarded TV End Up in a Ditch in Ghana?” Write a brief statement describing the environmental issue the photograph illustrates. Consider where you might go to learn more about this issue, and make a list of the sources you would consult.

What issue did you write about? What sources of information did you list? This chapter will show you how to find and evaluate a variety of sources; how to conduct field research; and how to record, connect, and make sense of what you learn from sources. To do all this effectively, you must approach the research process in a systematic way. Figure 23.1 lists the research skills you will need to develop, placing the skills covered in this chapter within the context of the process of writing a research project as a whole.

FIGURE 23.1 Writing a Research Project Using Sources

SCENES FROM COLLEGE AND THE WORKPLACE

  • For an anthropology course, you are asked to write a research project in which you analyze the differences between the religious practices of two cultures.
  • For an art history course, you must write a biography of a famous Renaissance artist as a final research project.
  • As supervisor of a health care facility, you decide to conduct a survey of the staff to determine employees’ interest in flexible working hours.