smg10e

Research your proposal.

Printed Page 338

Printed Page 339

You may have already begun researching the problem and familiarizing yourself with alternative solutions that have been offered, or you may have ideas about what you need to research. If you are proposing a solution to a problem about which others have written, use the following research strategies to help you find out what solutions others have proposed or tried. You may also use these strategies to find out how others have defined the problem and demonstrated its seriousness.

For more about searching for information, consult Chapter 24. For more about avoiding plagiarism, see Chapter 26. For more about documenting sources, consult Chapter 27 (MLA style) or Chapter 28 (APA style).

Enter keywords or phrases related to your solution (or problem) into the search box of an all-purpose database, such as Academic OneFile (InfoTrac) or Academic Search Complete (EBSCOHost), to find relevant articles in magazines and journals; in the database Lexis/Nexis to find articles in newspapers; or in library catalogs to find books and other resources. (Database names may change, and what is available will differ from school to school.Some libraries may even combine all three into one search link on the library’s home page. Ask a librarian if you need help.) Patrick O’Malley could have tried a combination of keywords, such as learning and test anxiety, or variations on his terms (frequent testing, improve retention) to find relevant articles.
Bookmark or keep a record of the URLs of promising sites, and download or copy information you could use in your essay. When available, download PDF files rather than HTML files, because these are likely to include visuals, such as graphs and charts. If you copy and paste relevant information into your notes, be careful to distinguish all material from sources from your own ideas.
Remember to record source information and to cite and document any sources you use, including visuals and interviews.