I wrote this for my other blog, The Benchwarmer's Almanac, but thought it would be relevant for this site, as writing a killer research paper is a must-have skill for all humanities majors!
I really enjoy writing but I know papers are a real pain in the butt, especially with the time crunch and the added stress of other class assignments so papers aren't always a great reflection of your writing skill since you may be half-crazy with stress while pulling it together, but I have seen some pretty common weaknesses and errors in the papers I've reviewed over the years. It doesn't help that oftentimes secondary schools don't give proper training in how to write papers (I had a friend who revealed to my junior year of college that no one had ever taught her to write a thesis) and college professors typically throw you in the deep end with term papers and give very little constructive criticism on your finished product.
Anyways, I wanted to put together a list of some tips I've gotten along the years and some advice based on difficulties I've seen other students have in writing papers in general, but specifically research-based for the humanities.
- You don't have to keep using quotes in your papers. Many students were taught to write this way in high school, especially since most writing is taught in English class where the teacher trains you to write body paragraphs in this structure:
Introductory sentence with main idea of the paragraph
First supporting point
Lead-in to quote and a quote from the text to support first point
Explanation of how quote supports the point
Second supporting point
Lead-in to next quote and quote supporting second point
Explanation of how second quote supports second point
Conclusion sentence with lead-in to next paragraph
Sound familiar?? Well, I have some liberating news for you, friend: you can stop using quotes from the text. In fact, I recommend that you do. It is appropriate in some cases, like when you're writing a paper addressing the argument of one specific text, but not really in the research paper situation. The idea of a research paper is that YOU conducted this research on your own and have drawn your own conclusions based on your findings, which you are now sharing with the readers. This is your chance to act like an expert, because you have, in a sense, become somewhat of an expert on this subject. So speak authoritatively to your reader instead of relying on other people's writing (quotes) to do the speaking for you. Instead, summarize the argument or main point the author was making in the part of the piece you would have normally quoted. If you want, you can verbally cite the author, especially if he or she is a major source for your paper or major voice on the topic. If not, you should put a citation after the sentence with the page number of the source you are drawing that argument from. Which brings me to my next point.
- When to cite a source: This is probably one of the hardest things for student writers to figure out, and it is a tricky thing to navigate. I recommend erring on the side of citing annoyingly often just to ensure that you don't pass someone's thoughts or data off as your own (aka plagiarize). Here are some guidelines for citing sources:
- If you are mentioning data or numbers of any kind, cite where you got them from.
- If you are stating a fact or research finding that you found out from something you read, cite that piece.
- If you are summarizing the words of another author or a major argument of theirs (essentially if you would have quoted them in your old high school method of writing), then cite the page(s) from which you are pulling their argument.
If you are unsure about this, review your work with a professor, librarian, or school writing center. As a general rule, while you are researching, be sure to takes notes of the page numbers of important arguments and data you want to use and/or mark important pages. This will help you immensely with being able to go back and pinpoint where you got your information from.
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| 12-pager = Ultra McWhopper |
- You can relax your use of the Hamburger Writing Model. I was taught to very strictly follow the writing style I laid out above while going through middle and high school. Naturally, when I entered college, I was still holding myself strictly to the "Intro sentence-First point-Support-Explanation-Second Point-Support-Explanation-Conclusion" body paragraph format. This is a great guideline for beginning writers to use and your writing should generally follow a flow of "Setting the stage with my main point - giving proof and further elaboration of the argument - connecting your point back to your main thesis" but it does not have to be a painful regimen. I got to the point where I was tearing my hair out writing papers because I was trying to connect every paragraph back to the thesis, which made it just sound like a bad children's program (So what does this teach us again? That we should be kind to our neighbors!) Finally, a professor told me that I could give myself permission to loosen up. You want to make sure you keep bringing your points back to your thesis, but you don't need to do so when it's unnatural. And you can let your supporting points decide for themselves how many sentences or paragraphs they need to be fully fleshed out, rather than putting things on a strict schedule. Let your writing flow but be mindful of how each idea you introduce relates back to your main purpose.
These are probably the biggest over-arching issues I have seen. Beyond this, I would just remember to let someone else (writing center, family member, friend) look over your paper before turning it in (even if they just read half) and keep track of your citations while you're writing; don't try to go back and identify everything unless you're really stuck. In fact, it may be a good idea to write up your bibliography early on too so that the nitpicky work of getting all the details right isn't left until 2am the day the paper's due. This way, too, you can get started early on research with an more concrete, do-able task of screening resources and writing down initial findings on your topic.
Well, that's a very broad overview of a tricky process, and sorry if it's not too polished, but I have to get back to my own research paper...heh.
