“How do I begin a research paper?”

Anna Orlov began by jotting down her research question: Is Internet surveillance in the workplace fair or unfair to employees?

She had heard about managers watching the online behavior of employees—how employees use the Internet, what they write in their e‐mails, and so on. She thought the monitoring practices might be unfair but wanted to consider all sides of the issue. Orlov knew she would have to be open‐minded and flexible and revisit her main ideas as she examined the information and arguments in her sources.

With her research question in hand, Orlov worked with a writing tutor to break her research plan into several stages. Together they came up with the following list of tasks and identified pages in Writer’s Help that could provide more information and advice.