RESEARCH ESSAY

  • This week, we plunge forward with writing our Research Essay, in which we share all the information we gathered from reading our quality sources.
    Objective Tone and Use of Outside Sources
    Remember to stay neutral and objective, and just present the facts. Remember, as well, to use a mix of mostly paraphrasing and summarizing, with some blended, direct quotes thrown in for good measure to really emphasize or illustrate your points.
    Citations
    Don’t forget to cite your sources within the text of your paper, and to reference them at the end. Make sure to use the APA Style resources in the library! There are specific requirements for APA Style formatting!
    Academic Essay Format
    Remember to use your academic essay format to keep you on track, and to keep the reader clear about your organization. Remember, too, to not go too overboard: this is a Research Essay meant to be only two or three pages long (850 words). Therefore, you will not want to use more than one or two sources. Make sure that you have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, as well as a References page.
    As with the Narrative Essay, you may want to submit your draft to a classmate, tutor, or instructor, for feedback or help with editing. If you would like instructor feedback, two full business days must be allowed for turn-around. (In this case, it must be received by the end of the day Wednesday in order to have the feedback available to you in time to make changes for your Final Draft submission, which is due on Sunday of this week.)
    To prepare you to get those APA Style citations and references correct, you will read Chapter 14 and work with it in your MH Connect SmartBook work. To help your writing become even more varied and stylistic, you will also review colons in the LearnSmart Achieve work for this week.
    Synthesizing the information you got from researching into your own writing can be tricky; the PowerPoint Concrete Detail and Commentary: A Helpful Equation will teach you how to do this well, so that you have enough of your own writing and also enough cited, researched information.
    Finally, to help you make sure that you do not have any plagiarism in your Research Essay, you will complete a video tutorial and discuss it in the Discussion Forum for this week.
  • Week 8 Objectives
    • Write a research essay
    • Synthesize information from articles
    • Demonstrate understanding of verbatim plagiarism
    • Apply knowledge of integrating concrete detail and commentary to ones own paper
    • Understand how to use colons correctly
  • Assigned Readings
    • Russell, K. L. (2021). Write now  (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
      • Chapter 14, Sections 14.1, 14.2, and 14.4: Documenting a Research Paper (pages 358-362, 389-420)