Some research papers require you to choose a topic. Others will have topics assigned by the professor.

Your choice:

• Choose a topic that you want to live with for a month or more.
• Choose a topic that you want to learn more about. This could be a topic in your major, one that you ran across in class, one that affects your town or community.
• Make sure that your topic fits the word count of the paper. One student wanted to write about the effects of slavery in a 1300-word essay. Her topic was too broad. She needed to narrow her topic to a specific aspect, such as health, wealth, or family, and she still may have needed to narrow further.
• Make sure that your topic lends itself to research rather than personal opinion. If you know it already, it is not research.

Professor's choice:

• You are limited to the topic the instructor chooses.
• Feel free to discuss if you can alter the topic with the instructor.

Some instructors will ask you to submit parts of the research process. They call it preliminary or working because it may be very different from the final submission, but is enough to get you started with the process.

Preliminary or Working Thesis

• This thesis gives you direction to begin your research.
• You may change or fine tune your thesis based upon what you find in your research.
• Reasons you may want to change: too narrow, too new, no sources, too broad, change of mind.

Preliminary or Working Bibliography

• A Bibliography is called a Works Cited in the MLA Style, which English uses.
• A preliminary or working bibliography is a list of sources you may want to use.
• Begin at the library, virtual or in-face.
• Search the Internet for an overview of your topic.
• Skim the list of sources to see if any has a direct bearing on your topic.
• Record everything that you will need to put on the Works Cited page.
• See MLA in Writing Center Module or LBH chapter 46.2 for a list of models.

Research papers require you to use sources. You can gauge the interest in your topic by doing a preliminary search. Many students have chosen obscure topics, only to find that no one is writing about them.

Preliminary Search:

• Google Search or Google Scholars--with these you will see if anyone is writing about your subject and what is being said.
• Reference works--such as Wikipedia or any encyclopedia will also give you an overview of the topic, and some reference works will list other sources in a bibliography for you to explore.

Southwest's Library:

• Locating Scholarly Sources--webinar or face instruction designed to give students knowledge of Southwest's databases, which will have authored and peer-reviewed articles, unlike the general ones on sites such as WebMD.
• Library Orientation--webinar or face instruction designed to give students knowledge on what the library offers. This can be used as a second option if you missed Locating Scholarly Sources and no more are scheduled.

Evaluating Sources:

You want reliable sources. Reliability means unbiased, current, well-documented, written by someone with authority.

• Bias: not known for fair coverage. These sources usually favor one side.
• Date of Publication: tells you how current the information is and if the source is testing new theories.
• Author’s Credentials: tells you the person's expertise, his or her authority to speak to you on this subject. You should be able to Google the author, and you cannot do this if the person doesn't provide his/her name.
• Reliability: for books, you will have to check this person's credentials. For reputable magazines, journals, newspapers, there is a gatekeeper (editor/publisher) who will do the credential-check for you.
• Thoroughness of Research and Documentation of Sources: scholars will cite sources; they will name names, give data, all to prove their thesis.

Plagiarism is using another writer's words or ideas without giving credit or using quotation marks, if appropriate.

Original: For Sophia, the main lesson of her childhood is that hard work pays off. Tanith Carey page 277

Plagiarized use of writer's words: Sophia believes that the main lesson of her childhood is that hard work pays off. [In this one, the student uses the exact words of the author with no naming of source or use of quotation marks.]

Fix: Sophia believes that "the main lesson of her childhood is that hard work pays off" (qtd. in Carey 277).

Plagiarized use of writer's ideas. Sophia believes that the number one thing she learned when she was a child is that working hard yields big rewards. [In this one, the student put the passage in his own words, but it is still Tanith Carey's idea.]

Fix: According to Tanith Carey, Sophia believes that the number one thing she learned when she was a child is that working hard yields big rewards (277).

Ways to avoid plagiarism:

• Summarize--a brief overview of the story, article, movie, report, or book. Your goal is to give an abbreviated version of the original in your own words. You must cite (source's name) and document (page number if print).
• Paraphrase--a translation of a short passage from a story or article or report of book. Your goal is to tell readers what the source said without using the words that the source used. Common words, such as teacher, school, student, are okay. You must cite (source's name) and document (page number if print).
• Quote--the exact words of the source in quotation marks. You goal is to tell us exactly what the source said. You must use quotation marks, cite (source's name), and document (page number if print).