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What image comes into mind as you hear those words: working
with stacks of articles and books, hunting the "treasure"
of others' thoughts? Whatever image you create, it's a sure
bet that you're envisioning sources of information--articles,
books, people, artworks. Yet a research paper is more than
the sum of your sources, more than a collection of different
pieces of information about a topic, and more than a review
of the literature in a field. A research paper analyzes
a perspective or argues a point. Regardless of the type
of research paper you are writing, your finished research
paper should present your own thinking backed up by others'
ideas and information.
To
draw a parallel, a lawyer researches and reads about many
cases and uses them to support her own case. A scientist
reads many case studies to support an idea about a scientific
principle. In the same way, a history student writing about
the Vietnam War might read newspaper articles and books
and interview veterans to develop and/or confirm a viewpoint
and support it with evidence.
A
research paper is an expanded essay that presents your own
interpretation or evaluation or argument. When you write
an essay, you use everything that you personally know and
have thought about a subject. When you write a research
paper you build upon what you know about the subject and
make a deliberate attempt to find out what experts know.
A research paper involves surveying a field of knowledge
in order to find the best possible information in that field.
And that survey can be orderly and focused, if you know
how to approach it.
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