Informative Essay
Jessie 1
tip.pptxExpository Writing
Research Paper
A research paper is an analytical or persuasive essay that presents and argues a thesis (evaluates a position)
What a research paper is not
A simple collection of facts on a topic
A summary of information from one or more sources
Research Paper: From an Interest to a Topic
In choosing a topic start with what interests you most deeply
Start by listing two or three interests you might like to explore/questions that you have wondered about
Examples
If you are undertaking a research project in a specific field, skim a recent textbook, talk to other students, or consult one of your teachers
Examples
You might try to identify an interest based on work you are doing or will do in a different course
Types of topics to avoid
If you are still stuck you can find help on the internet or in your library
Standard Guides in Various Fields
Dictionaries: briefly define concepts and sometimes offer a bibliography
Encyclopedias: give more extensive overviews and usually a bibliography
Bibliographies and Indexes list past and current publications in the field
Finding dictionaries, encyclopedias, and bibliographies in particular fields:
Go to Pfau Library Home Page
Under Search For heading click on the Encyclopedias/Dictionaries link
Under Search Online Databases heading select bibliographies and type your discipline into the search bar.
Scan headings for topics that catch your interest
Once you identify a general area of interest, use the internet to find out more about the topic so that you can narrow it.
At first you may not know enough about a general interest to turn it into a focused topic.
If so, you have to do some reading to know what to think about it.
Don’t read randomly: start with entries in a general encyclopedia, then look at entries in a specialized encyclopedia or dictionary, then browse through journals and websites until you have a grip on the general shape of your topic.
Previous Topics
Gender Discrimination and China’s One Child Policy
The Role of Attachment in and Foster Care Relationships
The Relationship Between Intelligence and Musical Preference
Chicano Park: History and Controversies
Native American Alcohol Abuse from Pre-Colonial to Modern Times
Fighting Digital Piracy
Breastfeeding in Women with Substance Abuse and the Effects on their Children
Government Sponsored Propaganda and its Influence on Public Opinion
Keeping Track: The Effectiveness of Electronic Monitoring as a Form of Punishment
The Wilderness Act of 1964:Could the Act be leading to the Destruction of the Lands It was Meant to Protect?
From a Broad Topic to a Focused One
Remember your topic must be focused enough for you to develop a specific argument about it:
A topic is usually too broad if you can state it in four or five words.
Examples from the book: “Free Will in War and Peace,” and “The History of Commercial Aviation”
Narrowing a topic (one way of narrowing a topic is to add limiting words and phrases such as: conflict, description, contribution, and development)
Free will in War and Peace → The conflict of free will and historical inevitability in Tolstoy’s description of three battles in War and Peace
The history of commercial aviation → The crucial contribution of the military in the development of the DC-3 in the early years of commercial aviation
Narrowing a Topic Contd.
It is important to narrow topic early on in the writing process, so that you won’t have to revise or discard too much.
Class Exercise: What are ways to narrow down the following topics?
The influence of parents in determining the kinds of young adults their children become
Impact of exercise on the human body
The history of the Civil Rights Movement
Coming up with a Research Problem and Question
A practical problem is caused by some condition in the world, from e-mail spam to terrorism, that makes us unhappy because it costs us time, money, respect, security, pain, even our lives.
You solve a practical problem by doing something that changes the world in which the problem arose, either by eliminating the causes that lead to its costs, or by encouraging others to do so.
A research problem is motivated not by palpable unhappiness, but by incomplete knowledge or flawed understanding.
You solve a research problem not by changing the world but by understanding it better.
The Nature of Research Problems
Whereas the condition of a practical problem can be any state of affairs whose costs makes you (or someone) unhappy, the condition of a research problem, on the other hand, is always some version of not knowing or not understanding something.
You can identify the conditions by working through a three step formula
I am studying how romantic movies have changed in the last fifty years. (condition)
…because I want to understand how cultural depictions of romantic love have changed (what you don’t know or understand)
…In order to help readers better understand how our culture is shaping the expectations of young men and women concerning marriage and the family (consequence)
Research Problem/ Question?
Potential Practical significance
Moving from an Initial Topic to Its Wider Significance: Developing a Research Problem
Once you have a research question/topic that grabs your interest, there are three steps for determining your topic’s significance:
Why should this question also grab my readers?
What makes this question worth asking
Step 1: Name Your Topic
Describe your topic in a sentence as specific as you can make it.
I am trying to learn about (working on, studying) ________ .
Step 2: Add a Question
Add to that sentence an indirect question that specifies something that you do not know or understand about your topic but want to. (why you are pursuing your topic)
I am studying X because I want to find out why/how ________.
Step 3: Motivate Your Question
Why is your question is significant not only to you, but also to others?
I am studying X because I want to find out why/how Z, in order to help my readers understand how, why, or whether ___________ .
In writing a research paper that draws on written sources, rather than on original research, the writer faces three major challenges
Supporting a Thesis
Citing sources and avoiding plagiarism
Integrating sources quotations and other source material
Research Paper: Developing an Argument
Thesis Statements
Definition of a thesis statement: a proposition maintained or defended in argument
Reveals the point of view the writer wants readers to consider.
Its job is simple: to announce as clearly and as straightforwardly as possible the main point the writer is trying to make in the essay.
Central to any argument
Arguable: The thesis should express an idea that can be doubted.
Clear: the thesis should use precise, unambiguous language, and thus it should contain no metaphors, similes, or other figures of speech.
Predictive: The thesis should predict the paper’s plan of development.
Unified: The thesis should make a unified statement expressed as a single sentence.
Narrow: The thesis should be about a topic that you can master thoroughly.
Original: The thesis should be original (at least to some degree).
More Specific Criteria for a Good Thesis Statement
You should try to formulate a developed thesis before you begin drafting your paper, so that you have a clear pattern of development laid out in advance
Your thesis will answer your central research question.
Research Question: Is medication the right treatment for the escalating problem of childhood obesity?
Possible Thesis: Understanding the limitations of medical treatments for children highlights the complexity of the childhood obesity problem in the United States and underscores the need for physicians, advocacy groups, and policymakers to search for other solutions.
Supporting a Thesis
“When overzealous parents and coaches impose adult standards on children’s sports, the result can be activities that are neither satisfying nor beneficial to children.”
Jessica Statsky, “Children Need to Play, Not Compete”
“Addicts are frequently denied treatment that would not only improve their lives, but also would improve our own lives – by cutting crime, reducing disease and improving the productivity of employees and the economy.”
Alan I. Leshner, “Why Shouldn’t Society Treat Substance Abusers”
Examples
Start with a research question
Choose an appropriate topic for your research paper
List all of the questions that you might like answered about the topic
Research Paper: Developing a Thesis
You should try to formulate a developed thesis before you begin drafting your paper, so that you have a clear pattern of development laid out in advance
Finding an appropriate thesis often involves finding out what disagreements or ambiguities there are in a current research area
How to find your overall argument:
To Summarize: Your Aim is to Explain…
What you are writing about – your topic: I am studying…
What you don’t know about it – your question: because I want to find out…
Why you want your reader to know about it – your rationale: in order to help my reader understand better…
Example Topic: The Effects of Food Aid on the Ethiopian Economy
Of all of the foreign countries that have received food aid – emergency or long term – Ethiopia has received the most. Because Ethiopia has received so much food aid over such an extended period of time, many have questioned whether food aid has really helped Ethiopia’s economy or whether it has made Ethiopia more economically dependent on foreign aid. This paper will examine the research conducted on food aid in an attempt to understand food aid’s effect on Ethiopia’s economy (agriculture and farm development). This paper will also examine some alternatives to food aid that have been suggested by researchers in order to determine if more beneficial forms of assistance could be implemented in the future.
Expository Writing
Introductions and conclusions
Writing Introductions and Conclusions
Why is an introduction so important?
Three elements of an Introduction
Contextualizing background
A statement of the problem
A response to the problem (can include your thesis statement)
Context + problem + response
Contextualizing Background: Establishing Common Ground
Contextualizing information can also be referred to as establishing common ground, because it establishes a shared understanding between reader and writer about the general issue the writer will address.
It also does something more important: it establishes a stable unproblematical context before introducing the problem that lies within that context.
Example from a fairy tale: One sunny morning little Red Riding Hood was skipping happily on her way to grandmother’s house…
Disrupting problem: …When suddenly a hungry wolf jumped out from behind a tree…
The rest of the story develops that problem and its costs and then resolves it.
Introductions to most research reports follow the same strategy.
Some research reports do not open with a common ground, but rather open directly with a problem.
Example: Recently the chemical processes that have been thinning the ozone layer have been found to be less well understood than once thought. We may have labeled hydrofluorcarbons as the chief cause incorrectly.
When college students go out to relax on the weekend, many now “binge,” downing several alcoholic drinks quickly until they are drunk or even pass out. It is a behavior that has been spreading through colleges and universities across the country, especially at large state universities. It once was done mostly by men, but now even women binge. It has drawn the attention of parents, college administrators, and researchers.
The impact of this problem can be heightened by introducing it with an unproblematical context of prior research, not just to orient readers toward the topic, but specifically to create an apparently stable context just so that you can disrupt it.
As we have investigated environmental threats, our understanding of many chemical processes such as acid rain and the buildup of carbon dioxide has improved, allowing us to understand better the eventual effects on the biosphere. (Common ground – sounds good) But recently the chemical processes that have been thinning the ozone layer have been found to be less well understood than once thought. (destabilizing condition) We may have labeled hydrofluorocarbons as the chief cause incorrectly. (cost)
Alcohol has been a big part of college life for hundreds of years. From football weekends to fraternity parties, college students drink and often drink hard. But a new kind of drinking known as “binge” drinking is spreading through our colleges and universities. Bingers drink quickly not to be sociable but to get drunk or even pass out. Binging is far from the harmless fun long associated with college life. In the last six months, it has been cited in at least six deaths, many injuries, and considerable destruction of property. It crosses the line from fun to reckless behavior that kills or injures not just drinkers but those around them. We may not be able to stop binging entirely, but we must try to control its worst costs by educating students in how to manage its risks.
Establishing a Shared Context
“Alcohol has been a big part of college life for hundreds of years. From football weekends to fraternity parties, college students drink and often drink hard. But a new kind of drinking known as “binge”…
Event: A recent State U survey showed that 80% of first-year students engaged in underage drinking in their first month on campus, a fact that should surprise no one. But what is worrisome is the spread among first-year students of a new kind of drinking known as “binge”…
Belief: Most students believe that college is a safe place to drink for those who live on or near campus. And for the most part they are right. But for those students who get caught up in the new trend of “binge”…
Other Ways of Establishing Context
Describe a general misunderstanding
The Crusades in the eleventh century are widely believed to have been motivated by religious zeal to restore the Holy Land to Christendom. (context) In fact, the motives were at least partly, if not largely, political.
Survey current but perhaps flawed research
Few sociological concepts have fallen out of favor as fast as Catholicism’s alleged protective influence against suicide. Once one of sociology’s basic beliefs, it has been called into question by a series of studies in both Europe and North America…. (context) However, certain studies still find an effect on religion…
Point to a misunderstanding about the problem itself
Education in the U.S. has focused on teaching children to think critically, to ask questions and test answers. (Context) But the field of critical thinking has regularly been taken over by special programs based on fads and special interests. Until we recognize that there is no silver bullet way to teach critical thinking, it will not achieve what we wish it would. (problem)
Prelude
A Quotation
A Startling Fact
An Illustrative Anecdote
Brainstorm: Ways of establishing a prelude and contextual background for your own research problem.
Stating Your Problem
Once you establish a context, you can disrupt it with a problem
Spell out the consequences (or costs) as an answer to the question “so what?” (i.e. to convince readers that your problem should matter to them)
- Examples?
Brainstorm
Stating Your Response
Can be stated in two ways:
State the gist of your solution: Thesis
Promise a solution: This introduction launches us into the body of the paper not with a point or summary of its solution, but with a sentence that promises a solution to come.
Conclusion
Briefly summarize your argument and include a developed thesis statement
Suggest broader issues and directions for further inquiry
Add a call for action or further research
