10th Grade Research Paper
You will be researching a topic and writing a paper to support a thesis. Your paper will contain MLA citations to support your thesis statement. At the end of your paper you will have a list of works cited in your paper.
Step 1:
Your first step will be researching some background information on your topic. If you find an article that will be useful to you, copy the entire article and save it in MS Word.
Directions for Saving Articles to MS Word:
Open MS Word.
Copy the MLA citation from your article and paste it at the top.
Copy the entire text of the article and paste it below the citation.
Save one article per document.
Where to find the MLA citation on each database:
Issues and Controversies - Provides articles on more than 600 controversial topics from A-Z.
Citation:
The MLA citation is at the bottom of the article. Be sure to copy the MLA citation.
SIRS - SIRS contains the full text of articles that have appeared in magazines and newspapers. Click on SIRS Knowledge Source. Clicking on one of the issues in the scrolling box will show you a brief background on your topic and article that support a pro v con question or questions.
Citation:
The MLA citation is at the bottom of the article.
Global Issues in Context - A database that provides a global perspective on current issues. Click on one of the featured topic categories or click on View All next to Browse Issues and Topics to see the complete list.
Citation:
The MLA citation is at the bottom of the article.
Step 2:
After reading a good background article about your topic or after gathering and reading several articles about your topic, create a working thesis statement. See the link below about creating a thesis statement.
You can use the Inspiration program to write a thesis statement and create a plan for your paper.
Open the link below to see the cyberbullying thesis statement and plan that we used in class.
Topic: Cyberbullying
Thesis statement: Cyberbullying results in emotional and physical harm to young people and new legislation is needed to successfully prosecute cyberbullies.
Topic: Cell phones in schools
Thesis statement: Cell phones can be beneficial to education and educators on many levels are designing lessons using cell phones.
Step 3:
Create a search strategy to find articles that will support your thesis statement and the different sections of your paper that you have planned out using Inspiration.
Choose an appropriate database that will contain articles about your topic.
Examples:
Topic: Cyberbullying
Thesis statement: Cyberbullying results in emotional and physical harm to young people and new legislation is needed to successfully prosecute cyberbullies.
Database: EBSCO Magazine Article Summaries
Search strategy: cyberbull* AND legisla*
Another word for legislation is law. So I can do a separate search for this.
Search strategy: cyberbull* AND law
Database: EBSCO Magazine Article Summaries
Search strategy: Megan Meier AND cyberbull*
Topic: Cell phones in schools
Thesis statement: Cell phones can be beneficial to education and educators on many levels are designing lessons using cell phones.
Database: EBSCO Professional Development Collection
Search strategy: cell phone* AND lesson*
TIPS:
Choose the right database for your topic.
Use truncation if it will be helpful.
Use synonyms to get all the results.
Choosing the right database for your topic.
See the link below for subject access to databases.
Truncation Use one star to replace any number of characters following the root form of a word.
Example: teen*
Synonyms Use a variety of vocabulary.
Example: teenagers adolescents youth
EBSCO MAS Ultra - Contains full text magazine and newspaper articles. Choose full text and bullet boolean/phrase for a more focused search. Check the cover story box for in depth articles.
Citation:
Click the Cite link at the right hand side of the page and copy the MLA citation.
Step 4:Creating an annotated bibliography.
Your annotated bibliography will contain the MLA citation for each article you have read as well as an annotation regarding the usefulness of the article in your paper.
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| Last updated 2015/04/24 12:05:10 EDT | Hits 1922 |
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