Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Dissertations

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Portions of this book have been adapted from The Craft of Research, 3rd edition, by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory C. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams,
2008 by The University of Chicago; and The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, 2010 by The University of Chicago.

1995, 2003,

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
2007, 2013 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2013.
Printed in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81637-1 (cloth)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81638-8 (paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81639-5 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Turabian, Kate L.
A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations : Chicago Style for students and researchers / Kate L. Turabian ; revised by Wayne C. Booth,
Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, and the University of Chicago Press editorial staff. Eighth edition.
pages cm. (Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing)
Portions of this book have been adapted from The Craft of Research, 3rd edition, by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory C. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, 1995, 2003,
2008 by The University of Chicago; and The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, 2010 by The University of Chicago title page verso.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-226-81637-1 (cloth : alkaline paper) ISBN 978-0-226-81638-8 (paperback : alkaline paper) ISBN 978-0-226-81639-5 (e-book) I. Dissertations,
Academic-Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Academic writing-Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Booth, Wayne C. II. Colomb, Gregory G. III. Williams, Joseph M. IV. Title. V.
Series: Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing.
LB2369.TS 2013
808.06 6378 dc23
2012036981
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

2

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and
Dissertations
Chicago Style for Students and Researchers
Kate L. Turabian
8th Edition
Revised by
Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, and the University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff

The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London

3

On Writing, Editing, and Publishing
Jacques Barzun
Telling About Society
Howard S. Becker
Tricks of the Trade
Howard S. Becker
Writing for Social Scientists
Howard S. Becker
What Editors Want
Philippa J. Benson and Susan C. Silver
Permissions, A Survival Guide
Susan M. Bielstein
The Craft of Translation
John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, editors
The Craft of Research
Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams
The Dramatic Writerʼs Companion
Will Dunne
Glossary of Typesetting Terms
Richard Eckersley, Richard Angstadt, Charles M. Ellerston, Richard Hendel, Naomi B. Pascal, and Anita Walker Scott
Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes
Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw
Legal Writing in Plain English
Bryan A. Garner
From Dissertation to Book
William Germano
Getting It Published
William Germano
The Craft of Scientific Communication
Joseph E. Harmon and Alan G. Gross
Storycraft
Jack Hart
A Poetʼs Guide to Poetry
Mary Kinzie
The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography
Luke Eric Lassiter
How to Write a BA Thesis

4

Charles Lipson
Cite Right
Charles Lipson
The Chicago Guide to Writing about Multivariate Analysis
Jane E. Miller
The Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers
Jane E. Miller
Mapping It Out
Mark Monmonier
The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science
Scott L. Montgomery
Indexing Books
Nancy C. Mulvany
Developmental Editing
Scott Norton
Getting into Print
Walter W. Powell
The Subversive Copy Editor
Carol Fisher Saller
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations
Kate L. Turabian
Studentʼs Guide for Writing College Papers
Kate L. Turabian
Tales of the Field
John Van Maanen
Style
Joseph M. Williams
A Handbook of Biological Illustration
Frances W. Zweifel

5

Contents

A Note to Students
Preface

Part I

Research and Writing: From Planning to Production
Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams
Overview of Part I

1

What Research Is and How Researchers Think about It
1.1 How Researchers Think about Their Aims
1.2 Three Kinds of Questions That Researchers Ask

2

Moving from a Topic to a Question to a Working Hypothesis
2.1 Find a Question in Your Topic
2.2 Propose Some Working Answers
2.3 Build a Storyboard to Plan and Guide Your Work
2.4 Organize a Writing Support Group

3

Finding Useful Sources
3.1 Understand the Kinds of Sources Readers Expect You to Use
3.2 Record Your Sources Fully, Accurately, and Appropriately
3.3 Search for Sources Systematically
3.4 Evaluate Sources for Relevance and Reliability
3.5 Look beyond the Usual Kinds of References

4

Engaging Sources
4.1 Read Generously to Understand, Then Critically to Engage and Evaluate
4.2 Take Notes Systematically
4.3 Take Useful Notes
4.4 Write as You Read
4.5 Review Your Progress
4.6 Manage Moments of Normal Panic

5

Planning Your Argument
5.1 What a Research Argument Is and Is Not
5.2 Build Your Argument around Answers to Readers Questions
5.3 Turn Your Working Hypothesis into a Claim
5.4 Assemble the Elements of Your Argument
5.5 Distinguish Arguments Based on Evidence from Arguments Based on Warrants
5.6 Assemble an Argument

6

Planning a First Draft
6.1 Avoid Unhelpful Plans
6.2 Create a Plan That Meets Your Readers Needs
6.3 File Away Leftovers

7

Drafting Your Report
7.1 Draft in the Way That Feels Most Comfortable
7.2 Develop Productive Drafting Habits
7.3 Use Your Key Terms to Keep Yourself on Track
7.4 Quote, Paraphrase, and Summarize Appropriately
7.5 Integrate Quotations into Your Text
7.6 Use Footnotes and Endnotes Judiciously

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7.7 Interpret Complex or Detailed Evidence Before You Offer It
7.8 Be Open to Surprises
7.9 Guard against Inadvertent Plagiarism
7.10 Guard against Inappropriate Assistance
7.11 Work Through Chronic Procrastination and Writer s Block
8

Presenting Evidence in Tables and Figures
8.1 Choose Verbal or Visual Representations
8.2 Choose the Most Effective Graphic
8.3 Design Tables and Figures
8.4 Communicate Data Ethically

9

Revising Your Draft
9.1 Check for Blind Spots in Your Argument
9.2 Check Your Introduction, Conclusion, and Claim
9.3 Make Sure the Body of Your Report Is Coherent
9.4 Check Your Paragraphs
9.5 Let Your Draft Cool, Then Paraphrase It

10

Writing Your Final Introduction and Conclusion
10.1 Draft Your Final Introduction
10.2 Draft Your Final Conclusion
10.3 Write Your Title Last

11

Revising Sentences
11.1 Focus on the First Seven or Eight Words of a Sentence
11.2 Diagnose What You Read
11.3 Choose the Right Word
11.4 Polish It Up
11.5 Give It Up and Print It Out

12

Learning from Your Returned Paper
12.1 Find General Principles in Specific Comments
12.2 Talk to Your Instructor

13

Presenting Research in Alternative Forums
13.1 Plan Your Oral Presentation
13.2 Design Your Presentation to Be Listened To
13.3 Plan Your Poster Presentation
13.4 Plan Your Conference Proposal

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Part II
15

On the Spirit of Research

Source Citation
General Introduction to Citation Practices
15.1 Reasons for Citing Your Sources
15.2 The Requirements of Citation
15.3 Two Citation Styles
15.4 Electronic Sources
15.5 Preparation of Citations
15.6 Citation Management Software

16

Notes-Bibliography Style: The Basic Form
16.1 Basic Patterns
16.2 Bibliographies
16.3 Notes

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16.4 Short Forms for Notes
17

Notes-Bibliography Style: Citing Specific Types of Sources
17.1 Books
17.2 Journal Articles
17.3 Magazine Articles
17.4 Newspaper Articles
17.5 Additional Types of Published Sources
17.6 Unpublished Sources
17.7 Websites, Blogs, Social Networks, and Discussion Groups
17.8 Sources in the Visual and Performing Arts
17.9 Public Documents
17.10 One Source Quoted in Another

18

Author-Date Style: The Basic Form
18.1 Basic Patterns
18.2 Reference Lists
18.3 Parenthetical Citations

19

Author-Date Style: Citing Specific Types of Sources
19.1 Books
19.2 Journal Articles
19.3 Magazine Articles
19.4 Newspaper Articles
19.5 Additional Types of Published Sources
19.6 Unpublished Sources
19.7 Websites, Blogs, Social Networks, and Discussion Groups
19.8 Sources in the Visual and Performing Arts
19.9 Public Documents
19.10 One Source Quoted in Another

Part III
20

Style
Spelling
20.1 Plurals
20.2 Possessives
20.3 Compounds and Words Formed with Prefixes
20.4 Line Breaks

21

Punctuation
21.1 Periods
21.2 Commas
21.3 Semicolons
21.4 Colons
21.5 Question Marks
21.6 Exclamation Points
21.7 Hyphens and Dashes
21.8 Parentheses and Brackets
21.9 Slashes
21.10 Quotation Marks
21.11 Apostrophes
21.12 Multiple Punctuation Marks

22

Names, Special Terms, and Titles of Works
22.1 Names

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22.2 Special Terms
22.3 Titles of Works
23

Numbers
23.1 Words or Numerals?
23.2 Plurals and Punctuation
23.3 Date Systems
23.4 Numbers Used outside the Text

24

Abbreviations
24.1 General Principles
24.2 Names and Titles
24.3 Geographical Terms
24.4 Time and Dates
24.5 Units of Measure
24.6 The Bible and Other Sacred Works
24.7 Abbreviations in Citations and Other Scholarly Contexts

25

Quotations
25.1 Quoting Accurately and Avoiding Plagiarism
25.2 Incorporating Quotations into Your Text
25.3 Modifying Quotations

26

Tables and Figures
26.1 General Issues
26.2 Tables
26.3 Figures
Appendix: Paper Format and Submission
A.1 General Format Requirements
A.2 Format Requirements for Specific Elements
A.3 File Preparation and Submission Requirements

Bibliography
Authors
Index

9

A Note to Students

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations has helped generations of students successfully research, write,
and submit papers in virtually all academic disciplines. Most commonly known as Turabian, in honor of the original author, this
book is the authoritative student resource on Chicago style.
Part I covers every step of the research and writing process and provides practical advice to help you formulate the right
questions, read critically, and build arguments. It also shows you how to draft and revise your papers to strengthen both your
arguments and your writing. Part 2 offers a comprehensive guide to Chicago s two methods of source citation, beginning with helpful
information on general citation practices in chapter 15. In the humanities and most social sciences, you will likely use the notesbibliography style detailed in chapters 16 and 17; in the natural and physical sciences and some social sciences, you will more likely
use the author-date (also called parenthetical citations-reference list) style described in chapters 18 and 19. Part 3 covers Chicago s
recommended editorial style, which will help you bring consistency to your writing in matters such as punctuation, capitalization,
and abbreviations; this section also includes guidance on incorporating quotations into your writing and on properly presenting
tables and figures. The appendix presents formatting and submission requirements for theses and dissertations that many academic
institutions use as a model, but be sure to follow any local guidelines provided by your institution.

10

Preface

Students writing research papers, theses, and dissertations in today s colleges and universities inhabit a world filled with electronic
technologies that were unimagined in 1937 the year dissertation secretary Kate L. Turabian first assembled a booklet of guidelines
for student writers at the University of Chicago. The availability of word-processing software and new digital sources has changed the
way students conduct research and write up the results. But these technologies have not altered the basic task of the student writer:
doing well-designed research and presenting it clearly and accurately, while following accepted academic standards for citation,
style, and format.
Turabian s 1937 booklet reflected guidelines found in A Manual of Style, tenth edition an already classic resource for writers
and editors published by the University of Chicago Press. The Press began distributing Turabian s booklet in 1947 and first published
the work in book form in 1955, under the title A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Turabian revised the
work twice more, updating it to meet students needs and to reflect the latest recommendations of the Manual of Style. Over time,
Turabian s book has become a standard reference for students of all levels at universities and colleges across the country. Turabian
died in 1987 at age ninety-four, a few months after publication of the fifth edition. For that edition, as well as the sixth (1996) and
seventh (2007), members of the Press editorial staff carried out the revisions. For the seventh edition, Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G.
Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams expanded the focus of the book by adding extensive new material adapted from their book The
Craft of Research, now in its third edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). Among the new topics covered were the
nature of research, finding and engaging sources, taking notes, developing an argument, drafting and revising, and presenting
evidence in tables and figures.
For this new eighth edition, part I offers updated coverage on finding and using the many types of digital sources that have
become available in recent years. Part 2 offers a comprehensive guide to the two Chicago styles of source citation the notesbibliography format used widely in the humanities and most social sciences and the author-date format favored in many of the
sciences and some social sciences. In addition to making the two citation systems more consistent stylistically, this edition offers
many examples for citing new types of digital sources not previously covered. Part 3 addresses matters of spelling, punctuation,
abbreviation, and treatment of numbers, names, special terms, and titles of works. The final two chapters in this section treat the
mechanics of using quotations and graphics (tables and figures), topics that are discussed from a rhetorical perspective in part I.
Both parts 2 and 3 have been updated for this edition in accordance with the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), or CMOS. The recommendations in this manual in some instances diverge from CMOS
in small ways, to better suit the requirements of academic papers as opposed to published works.
The appendix presents guidelines for paper format and submission that have become the primary authority for dissertation
offices throughout the United States. As revised, these guidelines now reflect the increasing trend toward electronic submission of
papers. This appendix is intended primarily for students writing PhD dissertations and master s and undergraduate theses, but the
sections on format requirements and electronic file preparation will also aid those writing class papers. An extensive bibliography,
organized by subject area, lists current sources for research and style issues specific to various disciplines.
The guidelines in this manual offer practical solutions to a wide range of issues encountered by student writers, but they may be
supplemented or even overruled by the conventions of specific disciplines or the preferences of particular institutions or
departments. All of the chapters on style and format remind students to review the requirements of their university, department, or
instructor, which take precedence over the guidelines presented here.
Updating a book that has been used by millions of students over seventy-five years is no small task, and many people participated
in preparing the eighth edition. Greg Colomb initiated the revision, and his death during the latter stages of the effort was a great
loss. Over the years, many Press staff members came to know Greg well and to treasure their relationship with him. He will be
missed. Greg was the remaining member of the remarkable trio of authors that also included Wayne Booth and Joe Williams.
Although they are gone from us, their work will continue to carry the firm, encouraging guidance that has been the hallmark of
Turabian s manual. The one voice that they so artfully melded out of their three will always animate this work.
Jon D Errico, Greg s longtime friend and colleague at the University of Virginia, completed the work on part I that Greg had
begun for this edition. Russell David Harper, the principal reviser of the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, produced
the initial drafts of the remaining manuscript. Within the Press, the project was developed, in part and in whole, under the guidance
of Jenny Gavacs, Mary E. Laur, David Morrow, and Paul Schellinger.
The appendix benefited from the generous advice of experts from a range of colleges, universities, and institutions: Matthew
Boots of Indiana University; Ginny Borst of the University of Colorado Boulder; Philippa Carter of the University of Pittsburgh;
Melissa Gomis of the University of Michigan; Peggy Harrell of the University of Southern Indiana; Elena Hsu of the University of
Wisconsin Madison; Jerett Lemontt of the University of California, Berkeley; Gail MacMillan of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University; Austin Mclean of ProQuest/UMI; Colleen Mullarkey of the University of Chicago; Bob Penman of the
University of Texas at Austin; Laura Ryman of James Madison University; Tim Watson of the Ohio State University; and Mark
Zulauf of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A team of librarians from the Regenstein Library at the University of
Chicago provided guidance for the extensive bibliography: Scott Landvatter, Catherine Mardikes, Nancy Spiegel, Sarah G. Wenzel,
and Christopher Winters.
Turning the manuscript into a book required the efforts of another team at the Press. Ruth Goring edited the manuscript, Rosina
Busse proofread the pages, and Mary E. Laur prepared the index. Michael Brehm provided the design, while David O Connor
supervised the production. Liz Fischer, Ellen Gibson, and Carol Kasper brought the final product to market.
The University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff

11

Research
and
Writing
Part I

From Planning
to Production
Wayne C. Booth,
Gregory G. Colomb,
& Joseph M. Williams

12

13

14

Overview of Part I

We know how challenged you can feel when you start a substantial research project, whether it s a PhD dissertation, a BA or
master s thesis, or just a long class paper. But you can handle any project if you break it into its parts, then work on them one step at
a time. This part shows you how to do that.
We first discuss the aims of research and what readers will expect of any research report. Then we focus on how to find a research
question whose answer is worth your time and your readers attention; how to find and use information from sources to back up
your answer; and then how to plan, draft, and revise your report so your readers will see that your answer is based on sound
reasoning and reliable evidence.
Several themes run through this part.
■ You can t plunge into a project blindly; you must plan it, then keep the whole process in mind as you take each step. So think big,
but break the process down into small goals that you can meet one at a time.
■ Your best research will begin with a question that you want to answer. But you must then imagine readers asking a question of
their own: So what if you don t answer it? Why should I care?
■ From the outset, you should try to write every day, not just to take notes on your sources but to clarify what you think of them. You
should also write down your own developing ideas to get them out of the cozy warmth of your head into the cold light of day,
where you can see if they still make sense. You probably won t use much of this writing in your final draft, but it is essential
preparation for it.
■ No matter how carefully you do your research, readers will judge it by how well you report it, so you must know what they will look
for in a clearly written report that earns their respect.
If you re an advanced researcher, skim chapters 1 4. You will see there much that s familiar; but if you re also teaching, it may
help you explain what you know to your students more effectively. Many experienced researchers report that chapters 5 12 have
helped them not only to explain to others how to conduct research and report it, but also to draft and revise their own reports more
quickly and effectively.
If you re just starting your career in research, you ll find every chapter of part 1 useful. Skim it all for an overview of the process;
then as you work through your project, reread chapters relevant to your immediate task.
You may feel that the steps described here are too many to remember, but you can manage them if you take them one at a time,
and as you do more research, they ll become habits of mind. Don t think, however, that you must follow these steps in exactly the
order we present them. Researchers regularly think ahead to future steps as they work through earlier ones and revisit earlier steps
as they deal with a later one. (That explains why we so often refer you ahead to anticipate a later stage in the process and back to
revisit an earlier one.) And even the most systematic researcher has unexpected insights that send her off in a new direction. Work
from a plan, but be ready to depart from it, even to discard it for a new one.
If you re a very new researcher, you may also think that some matters we discuss are beyond your immediate needs. We know
that a ten-page class paper differs from a PhD dissertation. But both require a kind of thinking that even the newest researcher can
start practicing. You begin your journey toward full competence when you not only know what lies ahead but can also start practicing
the skills that experienced researchers began to learn when they were where you are now.
No book can prepare you for every aspect of every research project. And this one won t help you with the specific methodologies
in fields such as psychology, economics, and philosophy, much less physics, chemistry, and biology. Nor does it tell you how to adapt
what you learn about academic research to business or professional settings.
But it does provide an overview of the processes and habits of mind that underlie all research, wherever it s done, and of the
plans you must make to assemble a report, draft it, and revise it. With that knowledge and help from your teachers, you ll come to
feel in control of your projects, not intimidated by them, and eventually you ll learn to manage even the most complex projects on
your own, in both the academic and the professional worlds.
The first step in learning the skills of sound research is to understand how experienced researchers think about its aims.

15

1

What Research Is and How Researchers Think about It

1.1

How Researchers Think about Their Aims

1.2

Three Kinds of Questions That Researchers Ask
1.2.1
1.2.2
1.2.3
1.2.4
1.2.5

Conceptual Questions: What Should We Think?
Practical Questions: What Should We Do?
Applied Questions: What Must We Understand Before We Know What to Do?
Choosing the Right Kind of Question
The Special Challenge of Conceptual Questions: Answering So What?

You do research every time you ask a question and look for facts to answer it, whether the question is as simple as finding a plumber
or as profound as discovering the origin of life. When only you care about the answer or when others need just a quick report of it,
you probably won t write it out. But you must report your research in writing when others will accept your claims only after they
study how you reached them. In fact, reports of research tell us most of what we can reliably believe about our world that once
there were dinosaurs, that germs cause disease, even that the earth is round.
You may think your report will add little to the world s knowledge. Maybe so. But done well, it will add a lot to yours and to your
ability to do the next report. You may also think that your future lies not in scholarly research but in business or a profession. But
research is as important outside the academy as in, and in most ways it is the same. So as you practice the craft of academic research
now, you prepare yourself to do research that one day will be important at least to those you work with, perhaps to us all.
As you learn to do your own research, you also learn to use and judge that of others. In every profession, researchers must
read and evaluate reports before they make a decision, a job you ll do better only after you ve learned how others will judge yours.
This book focuses on research in the academic world, but every day we read or hear about research that can affect our lives. Before
we believe those reports, though, we must think about them critically to determine whether they are based on evidence and
reasoning that we can trust.
To be sure, we can reach good conclusions in ways other than through reasons and evidence: we can rely on tradition and
authority or on intuition, spiritual insight, even on our most visceral emotions. But when we try to explain to others not just why we
believe our claims but why they should too, we must do more than just state an opinion and describe our feelings.
That is how a research report differs from other kinds of persuasive writing: it must rest on shared facts that readers accept as
truths independent of your feelings and beliefs. They must be able to follow your reasoning from evidence that they accept to the
claim you draw from it. Your success as a researcher thus depends not just on how well you gather and analyze data but on how
clearly you report your reasoning so that your readers can test and judge it before making your claims part of their knowledge and
understanding.

1.1 How Researchers Think about Their Aims
All researchers gather facts and information, what we re calling data. But depending on their aims and experience, they use those
data in different ways. Some researchers gather data on a topic stories about the Battle of the Alamo, for example just to satisfy a
personal interest (or a teacher s assignment).
Most researchers, however, want us to know more than just facts. So they don t look for just any data on a topic; they look for
specific data that they can use as evidence to test and support an answer to a question that their topic inspired them to ask, such as
why has the Alamo story become a national legend?
Experienced researchers, however, know that they must do more than convince us that their answer is sound. They must also
show us why their question was worth asking, how its answer helps us understand some bigger issue in a new way. If we can figure
out why the Alamo story has become a national legend, we might then answer a larger question: how have regional myths shaped our
national character?
You can judge how closely your thinking tracks that of an experienced researcher by describing your project in a sentence like
this:
1. I am working on the topic X (stories about the Battle of the Alamo)
2. because I want to find out Y (why its story became a national legend)
3. so that I can help others understand Z (how such regional myths have shaped our national character).
That sentence is worth a close look, because it describes not just the progress of your research but your personal growth as a
researcher.
1. I am working on the topic
Researchers often begin with a simple topic like the Battle of the Alamo, perhaps because it was
assigned, because something about it puzzles them, or because it merely sparks an interest. But inexperienced researchers too
often stop there, leaving themselves with nothing but a topic to guide their work. They mound up hundreds of notes but have no
way to decide what data to keep and what to discard. When it comes time to write, they dump everything into a report that reads
like a grab bag of random facts. If those facts are new to readers who happen to be interested in the topic, they might read the

16

report. But even those readers will want to know what those facts add up to.
because I want to find out how or why
More experienced researchers usually begin not with just a topic but with a research
question, such as Why has the story of the Alamo become a national legend? And they know that readers will think their facts add
up to something only when those facts serve as evidence to support its answer. Indeed, only with a question can a researcher
know which facts to look for and which to keep not just those that support an answer but also those that test or even discredit it.
When he thinks he has enough evidence to support his answer and can respond to data that seem to contradict it, he writes a
report first to test his own thinking, then to share his answer with others so that they can test it too.
3.
so that I can help others understand
The most successful researchers, however, realize that readers want to know not only
that an answer is sound but why the question was worth asking. So they anticipate that readers will ask a question of their own:
So what? Why should I care why the Alamo story has become a legend? That So what? can vex even the most experienced
researcher, but every researcher must try to answer it before it s asked: If we can find that out, we might better understand the
bigger question of how such stories shape our national character.
2.

But a shrewd researcher doesn t stop there. She anticipates her readers asking So what? again by looking for another, still larger
answer: And if we can understand what has shaped our national character, we might understand better who we Americans think we
are. And before you ask, when we know that, we might better understand why others in the world judge us as they do. The most
successful researchers know that readers care about a question only when they think that its answer might encourage them to say not
So what? but That s worth knowing!
In short, not all questions are equally good. We might ask how many cats slept in the Alamo the night before the battle, but so
what if we find out? It is hard to see how an answer would help us think about any larger issue worth understanding, so it s a
question that s probably not worth asking (though as we ll see, we could be wrong about that).

1.2 Three Kinds of Questions That Researchers Ask
Experienced researchers also know that different readers expect them to ask and answer different kinds of questions. The most
common questions in academic work are conceptual. The ones most common in the professions are practical.
1.2.1 Conceptual Questions: What Should We Think?
A question is conceptual when your answer to So what? doesn t tell readers what to do but helps them understand some issue:
1. I am working on the topic X
2. because I want to find out how/why/whether Y (So what if you do?)
3. so that I can help others understand how/why/whether Z.
If you were explaining your research, the conversation might go like this:
Iʼm working on the topic of risk evaluation.
Why?
Because I want to find out how ordinary people evaluate the risk that they will be hurt by terrorism.
So what if you do?
Once I do, we might better understand the bigger question of how emotional and rational factors interact to influence the way
ordinary thinkers think about risk.
Researchers in the humanities and the social and natural sciences work mostly on conceptual questions, such as How did
Shakespeare s political environment influence his plays? What caused the extinction of most large North American mammals? What
are comets made of? The answers to those questions don t tell us how to change the world, but they do help us understand it better.
To be sure, the answer to a conceptual question often turns out to be unexpectedly relevant to solving a practical problem. And
before we can solve any important practical problem, we usually must do conceptual research to understand it better. But in most of
the academic world, the primary aim of most researchers is only to improve our understanding.
1.2.2 Practical Questions: What Should We Do?
You pose a different kind of question call it a practical one
some trouble-some or at least improvable situation:

when your answer to So what? tells readers what to do to change or fix

1. I am working on the topic X
2. because I want to find out Y (So what if you do?)
3. so that I can tell readers what to do to fix/improve Z.
You would explain your work on a practical question like this:
Iʼm working on the topic of communicating risk effectively.
Why?
Because I want to find out what psychological factors cause ordinary Americans to exaggerate their personal risk from a terrorist

17

attack.
So what if you do?
Then I can tell the government how to counteract those factors when they communicate with the public about the real risk of
terrorism.
Practical questions are most common outside the academic world, especially in business. In academic fields such as health care
and engineering, researchers sometimes ask practical questions, but more often they ask a third kind of question that s neither
purely practical nor purely conceptual: call it an applied research question.
1.2.3 Applied Questions: What Must We Understand Before We Know What to Do?
Often we know we must do something to solve a practical problem, but before we can know what that is, we must do research to
understand the problem better. We can call that kind of research applied. With this middle kind of question, the third step raises a
question whose answer is not the solution to a practical problem but only a step toward it.
I want to find out how Americans have changed their daily lives in response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
So what if you do?
Then we can understand the psychological factors that cause ordinary Americans to exaggerate their personal risk from a terrorist
attack.
So what if you do?
Then we can understand how to reduce the effects of those psychological factors.
So what if you do?
Then perhaps the government can use that information to communicate more effectively the real risk from terrorism.
Applied questions are common in academic fields such as business, engineering, and medicine and in companies and government
agencies that do research to understand what must be known before they can solve a problem.
1.2.4 Choosing the Right Kind of Question
Some new researchers dislike purely conceptual research questions because they think they re too theoretical or irrelevant to the
real world. So they try to cobble an implausible practical use onto a conceptual answer: When we know how race shaped the
political impact of the Alamo stories, we can understand how racism has been used to foster patriotism and thereby eliminate racist
appeals to patriotism in relation to conflicts in the Middle East.
That impulse is understandable. But unless you ve been assigned an applied or practical problem, resist it. You are unlikely to
solve any significant practical problem in a class paper, and in any case, most of the academic world sees its mission not as fixing the
problems of the world directly but as understanding them better (which may or may not help fix them).
1.2.5 The Special Challenge of Conceptual Questions: Answering So What?
With most practical questions, we don t have to answer So what? because the benefit is usually obvious. Even most applied questions
imply the practical benefits of their answers: few readers would question why a researcher is trying to understand what causes
Alzheimer s. With conceptual questions, however, the answer to So what? is often not obvious at all, even to an experienced
researcher: So what if Shakespeare had Lady Macbeth die offstage rather than on? So what if some cultures use masks in their
religious rituals and others don t? Why is it important to know that?
For a research paper in an introductory course, your instructor may be satisfied with any plausible answer to So what? So if early
in your research career you find yourself struggling with that question, don t take it as a sign of failure, much less as evidence that
you re not ready to do the work. In fact, you might not discover the answer to So what? until you ve drafted your report, maybe not
even until you ve finished it. And even then, maybe the answer will matter only to you.
But if your project is a thesis or dissertation, it s not just an advisor that you have to satisfy. Your answer must also satisfy those
in your field (represented by your advisor), who will judge your work not just by the quality of your answer but by the significance of
your question. Experienced researchers know that some readers, perhaps many, will read their report and think, I don t agree. They
accept that as an inevitable part of sharing research on significant issues. What they can t accept is I don t care.
So as hard as it will be, the more often you imagine others asking So what? and the more often you try to answer it, if only to your
own satisfaction, the more confident you can be that eventually you ll learn to succeed at every experienced researcher s toughest
task to convince your readers that your report is worth their time. (In chapter 10 we discuss how to write an introduction that
motivates your readers at least to start reading your report.)

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2

2.1

Moving from a Topic to a Question to a Working Hypothesis

Find a Question in Your Topic
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.1.3
2.1.4

2.2

Propose Some Working Answers
2.2.1
2.2.2
2.2.3

2.3

Decide on a Working Hypothesis
Beware the Risks in a Working Hypothesis
If You Canʼt Find an Answer, Argue for Your Question

Build a Storyboard to Plan and Guide Your Work
2.3.1
2.3.2
2.3.3
2.3.4

2.4

Search Your Interests
Make Your Topic Manageable
Question Your Topic
Evaluate Your Questions

State Your Question and Working Hypotheses
State Your Reasons
Sketch in the Kind of Evidence You Should Look For
Look at the Whole

Organize a Writing Support Group

A research project is more than collecting data. You start it before you log on to the Internet or head for the library, and you continue
it long after you have all the data you think you need. In that process, you face countless specific tasks, but they all aim at just five
general goals. You must do the following:
■ Ask a question worth answering.
■ Find an answer that you can support with good reasons.
■ Find reliable evidence to support your reasons.
■ Draft a report that makes a good case for your answer.
■ Revise that draft until readers will think you met the first four goals.
You might even post those five goals in your workspace.
Research projects would be easy if you could march straight through those steps. But as you ve discovered (or soon will), research
and its reporting are never straightforward. As you do one task, you ll have to look ahead to others or revisit an earlier one. You ll
change topics as you read, search for more data as you draft, perhaps even discover a new question as you revise. Research is
looping, messy, and unpredictable. But it s manageable if you have a plan, even when you know you ll depart from it.

2.1 Find a Question in Your Topic
Researchers begin projects in different ways. Many experienced ones begin with a question that others in their field want to answer:
What caused the extinction of most large North American mammals? Others begin with just a vague intellectual itch that they have
to scratch. They might not know what puzzles them about giant sloths and mastodons, but they re willing to spend time finding out
whether they can translate their itch into a question worth answering.
They know, moreover, that the best research question is not one whose answer others want to know just for its own sake; it is one
that helps them understand some larger issue (So what? again). For example, if we knew why North American sloths disappeared,
we might be able to answer a larger question that puzzles many historical anthropologists: Did early Native Americans live in
harmony with nature, as some believe, or did they hunt its largest creatures to extinction? (And if we knew that, then we might also
understand )
Then there are those questions that just pop into a researcher s mind with no hint of where they ll lead, sometimes about matters
so seemingly trivial that only the researcher thinks they re worth answering: Why does a coffee spill dry up in the form of a ring?
Such a question might lead nowhere, but you can t know that until you see its answer. In fact, the scientist puzzled by coffee rings
made discoveries about the behavior of fluids that others in his field thought important and that paint manufacturers found
valuable. So who knows where you might go with a question like How many cats slept in the Alamo the night before the battle? You
can t know until you get there.
In fact, a researcher s most valuable ability is the knack of being puzzled by ordinary things: like the shape of coffee rings; or why
Shakespeare has Lady Macbeth die offstage rather than on; or why your eyebrows don t grow as long as the hair on your head.
Cultivate the ability to see what s odd in the commonplace and you ll never lack for research projects, as either a student or a
professional.
If you have a topic, skip to 2.1.3 to find questions in it. If you already have a question or two, skip to 2.1.4 to test them by the

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criteria listed there. If you re still looking for a topic, here s a plan to help you search for one.
2.1.1 Search Your Interests
If you can pick any topic appropriate to your field, ask these questions:
■ What topics do you already know something about? You can learn more.
■ What would you like to know more about? A place? A person? A time? An object? An idea? A process?
■ Can you find a discussion list on the Internet about issues that interest you?
■ Have you taken positions on any issues in your field in debates with others but found that you couldn t back up your views with
good reasons and evidence?
■ What issues do people outside your field misunderstand?
■ What topic is your instructor working on? Would she like you to explore a part of it? Don t be too shy to ask.
■ Does your library have rich resources in some field? Ask your instructor or a librarian.
■ What other courses will you take in your field or out of it? Find a text-book and skim it for study questions.
■ If you have a job in mind, what kind of research report might help you get it? Employers often ask for samples of an applicant s
work.
You can also consult print sources for ideas:
■ Skim the topics in specialized indexes in your field such as Philosopher s Index, Geographical Abstracts, Women s Studies
Abstracts, and so on (in the bibliography, see items in category 2 in your field).
■ Skim a journal that reviews the year s work in your field (in the bibliography, see items in category 2 in your field).
Academic research is meant to be shared, but the understanding it brings may also be valuable to you in the future. So think
ahead: look for a project that might help you a year from now. Keep in mind, though, that you may be in for a long relationship with
your topic, so be sure it interests you enough to get you through the inevitable rocky stretches.
2.1.2 Make Your Topic Manageable
If you pick a topic whose name sounds like an encyclopedia entry bridges, birds, masks you ll find so many sources that you could
spend a lifetime reading them. You must carve out of your topic a manageable piece. You can start before you head to the library by
limiting your topic to reflect a special interest in it: What is it about, say, masks that made you choose them? What particular aspect
of them interests or puzzles you? Think about your topic in a context that you know something about, then add words and phrases to
reflect that knowledge:
masks in religious ceremonies
masks as symbols in Hopi religious ceremonies
mudhead masks as symbols of sky spirits in Hopi fertility ceremonies
You might not be able to focus your topic until after you start reading about it. That takes time, so start early (you can do much of
this preliminary work online):
■ Begin with an overview of your topic in a general encyclopedia (in the bibliography see items in category 2 in the general sources);
then read about it in a specialized one (see items in category 2 in your field).
■ Skim a survey of your topic (encyclopedia entries usually cite a few).
■ Skim subheads under your topic in an annual bibliography in your field (in the bibliography, see items in category 4 in your field).
That will also give you a start on a reading list.
■ Search the Internet for the topic (but evaluate the reliability of what you find; see 3.4.3).
Especially useful are topics that spark debate: Fisher claims that Halloween masks reveal children s archetypal fears, but do they?
Even if you can t resolve the debate, you can learn how such debates are conducted (for more on this, see 3.1.2).
2.1.3 Question Your Topic
Do this not just once, early on, but throughout your project. Ask questions as you read, especially how and why (see also 4.1.1 4.1.2).
Try the following kinds of questions (the categories are loose and overlap, so don t worry about keeping them distinct).
1. Ask how the topic fits into a larger context (historical, social, cultural, geographic, functional, economic, and so on):
■ How does your topic fit into a larger story? What came before masks? How did masks come into being? Why? What changes
have they caused in other parts of their social or geographic setting? How and why did that happen? Why have masks become a
part of Halloween? How and why have masks helped make Halloween the biggest American holiday after Christmas?
■ How is your topic a functioning part of a larger system? How do masks reflect the values of specific societies and cultures?
What roles do masks play in Hopi dances? In scary movies? In masquerade parties? For what purposes are masks used other
than disguise? How has the booming market for kachina masks influenced traditional designs?
■ How does your topic compare to and contrast with other topics like it? How do masks in Native American ceremonies differ
from those in Africa? What do Halloween masks have to do with Mardi Gras masks? How are masks and cosmetic surgery
alike?

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2. Ask questions about the nature of the thing itself, as an independent entity:
■ How has your topic changed through time? Why? What is its future? How have Halloween masks changed? Why? How have
Native American masks changed? Why?
■ How do the parts of your topic fit together as a system? What parts of a mask are most significant in Hopi ceremonies? Why?
Why do some masks cover only the eyes? Why do so few masks cover just the bottom half of the face?
■ How many different categories of your topic are there? What are the different kinds of Halloween masks? What are the
different qualities of masks? What are the different functions of Halloween masks?
3. Turn positive questions into a negative ones: Why have masks not become a part of Christmas? How do Native American masks
not differ from those in Africa? What parts of masks are typically not significant in religious ceremonies?
4. Ask speculative questions: Why are masks common in African religions but not in Western ones? Why are children more
comfortable wearing Halloween masks than are most adults? Why don t hunters in camouflage wear masks?
5. Ask What if? questions: how would things be different if your topic never existed, disappeared, or were put into a new context?
What if no one ever wore masks except for safety reasons? What if everyone wore masks in public? What if movies and TV were
like Greek plays and all the actors wore masks? What if it were customary to wear masks on blind dates? In marriage ceremonies?
At funerals?
6. Ask questions that reflect disagreements with a source: if a source makes a claim you think is weakly supported or even wrong,
make that disagreement a question (see also 4.1.2). Martinez claims that carnival masks uniquely allow wearers to escape social
norms. But I think religious masks also allow wearers to escape from the material realm to the spiritual. Is there a larger pattern
of all masks creating a sense of alternative forms of social or spiritual life?
7. Ask questions that build on agreement: if a source offers a claim you think is persuasive, ask questions that extend its reach (see
also 4.1.1). Elias shows that masked balls became popular in eighteenth-century London in response to anxiety about social
mobility. Is the same anxiety responsible for similar developments in other European capitals? You can also ask a question that
supports the same claim with additional evidence. Elias supports his claim about masked balls entirely with published sources. Is
it also supported by evidence from unpublished sources such as letters and diaries?
8. Ask questions analogous to those that others have asked about similar topics. Smith analyzed the Battle of Gettysburg from an
economic point of view. What would an economic analysis of the Battle of the Alamo turn up?
9. Look for questions that other researchers pose but don t answer. Many journal articles end with a paragraph or two about open
questions, ideas for more research, and so on. You might not be able to do all the research they suggest, but you might carve out a
piece of it.
10. Find an Internet discussion list on your topic, then lurk, just reading the exchanges to understand the kinds of questions those
on the list discuss. If you can t find a list using a search engine, ask a teacher or visit the website of professional organizations in
your field. Look for questions that spark your interest. You can even ask a question of the list, so long as it is very specific and
narrowly focused, but wait until you see whether questions from students are welcomed.
2.1.4 Evaluate Your Questions
Not all answers are equally useful, so evaluate your questions and scrap those that are unlikely to yield interesting answers.
Reconsider when the following is true.
1. You can answer the question too easily.
■ You can look it up: What masks are used in Navajo dances?
■ You can summarize a source: What does Fisher say about masks and fears?
2. You can t find good evidence to support the answer.
■ No relevant facts exist: Are Mayan masks modeled on space aliens?
■ The question is based on preference or taste: Are Balinese or Mayan masks more beautiful?
■ You must read too many sources: How are masks made? You don t want to plow through countless reports to find the best
evidence (this usually results from a question that s too broad).
■ You can t get the sources that your readers think are crucial. In even moderately advanced projects, you ll be expected to work
with the best sources available; for a thesis and dissertation, they re essential. If you can t obtain those sources, find another
question.
3. You can t plausibly disprove the answer.
■ The answer seems self-evident because the evidence overwhelmingly favors one answer. How important are masks in Inuit
culture? The answer is obvious: Very. If you can t imagine disproving a claim, then proving it is pointless. (On the other hand,
world-class reputations have been won by those who questioned a claim that seemed self-evidently true for instance, that the
sun circled the earth and dared to disprove it.)

21

Don t reject a question because you think someone must already have asked it. Until you know, pursue its answer as if you asked
first. Even if someone has answered it, you might come up with a better answer or at least one with a new slant. In fact, in the
humanities and social sciences the best questions usually have more than one good answer. You can also organize your project
around comparing and contrasting competing answers and supporting the best one (see 6.2.5).
The point is to find a question that you want to answer. Too many students, both graduate and undergraduate, think that the aim
of education is to memorize settled answers to someone else s questions. It is not. It is to learn to find your own answers to your own
questions. To do that, you must learn to wonder about things, to let them puzzle you particularly things that seem most
commonplace.

2.2 Propose Some Working Answers
Before you get deep into your project, try one more step. It is one that some beginners resist but that experienced researchers usually
attempt. Once you have a question, imagine some plausible answers, no matter how sketchy or speculative. At this stage, don t worry
whether they re right. That comes later.
For example, suppose you ask, Why do some religions use masks in ceremonies while others don t? You might speculate,
Maybe cultures with many spirits need masks to distinguish them.
Maybe masks are common in cultures that mix religion and medicine.
Maybe religions originating in the Middle East were influenced by the Jewish prohibition against idolatry.
Even a general answer can suggest something worth studying:
Maybe it has to do with the role of masks in nonreligious areas of a culture.
Try to imagine at least one plausible answer, no matter how tentative or speculative. If after lots of research you can t confirm it,
you can organize your report around why that answer seemed reasonable at the time but turned out to be wrong and so isn t worth
the time of other researchers. That in itself can be a valuable contribution to the conversation on your topic. (See 10.1.1 10.1.2 for
how to use an apparently good idea that turns out to be wrong.)
In fact, look for two or three plausible answers. Even if you prefer one, you can improve it by testing it against the others, and in
any event, you can t show that an answer is right if you can t also show why others are wrong. Even early in the project, write out
your answers as clearly and as fully as you can. It is too easy to think that you have a clear idea when you don t. Putting a foggy idea
into words is the best way to clarify it, or to discover that you can t.
2.2.1 Decide on a Working Hypothesis
If one answer seems promising, call it your working hypothesis and use it to guide your research. You can, of course, look for
evidence with no more than a question to guide you, because any question limits the number of plausible answers. But even the most
tentative working hypothesis helps you to think ahead, especially about the kind of evidence that you ll need to support it. Will you
need numbers? quotations? observations? images? historical facts? More important, what kind of evidence would disprove your
hypothesis? Answer those questions and you know the kind of data to watch for and to keep. In fact, until you have a hypothesis, you
can t know whether any data you collect are relevant to any question worth asking.
If you can t imagine any working hypothesis, reconsider your question. Review your list of exploratory questions to find one that
you can answer; if you skipped that step, go back to 2.1.3. You may even decide to start over with a new topic. That costs time in the
short run, but it may save you from a failed project. If you re working on a thesis or dissertation, you can wait longer to firm up a
hypothesis while you read and ponder, but don t get deeply into your project without at least the glimmer of a possible answer.
Under no circumstances should you put off thinking about a hypothesis until you begin drafting your report or, worse, until
you ve almost finished it. You might not settle on the best answer to your question until you ve written your last page: writing, even
revising, is itself an act of discovery. Just don t wait until that last page to start thinking about some answer.
2.2.2 Beware the Risks in a Working Hypothesis
It is a bad idea to settle on a final answer too soon. But many new researchers and some experienced ones are afraid to consider any
working hypothesis early in their project, even one they hold lightly, because they fear it might bias their thinking. There is some risk
of that, but a working hypothesis need not close your mind to a better one. Even the most objective scientist devises an experiment to
test for just a few predicted outcomes, often just one. In fact, researchers who don t state a hypothesis usually have one in mind but
don t want to seem publicly committed to it, lest it turn out wrong.
A working hypothesis is a risk only if it blinds you to a better one or if you can t give it up when the evidence says you should. So
as in all relationships, don t fall too hard for your first hypothesis: the more you like it, the less easily you ll see its flaws. Despite that
risk, it s better to start with a flawed hypothesis than with none at all.
2.2.3 If You Can t Find an Answer, Argue for Your Question
We have focused on questions so much that you might think that your project fails if you can t answer yours. In fact, much important
research explains why a question no one has asked should be, even though the researcher can t answer it: Do turtles dream? Why is
yawning contagious but being sleepy isn t? Or is it? Such reports focus on why the question is important and what a good answer
might look like. Or you may find that someone has answered your question, but incompletely or even, if you re lucky, incorrectly. If
you can t find the right answer, you help readers by showing that a widely accepted one is wrong. (See 10.1.2 for how to use this plan
in your introduction.)

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Only when you ask question after question will you develop the critical imagination you ll need in any profession you pursue. In
fact, as experienced researchers know, most issues have few, if any, final answers, because there are no final questions. They know
that it s as important to ask a new question as it is to answer an old one, and that one day their new question will become old and
yield to a newer researcher s still newer one.
Your job is to become that newer researcher.

2.3 Build a Storyboard to Plan and Guide Your Work
For a short paper, you might not need a detailed plan a sketch of an outline might do. But for a long project, you ll usually need
more, especially for one as long as a thesis or dissertation. The first plan that comes to mind is usually an outline, with its I s and II s
and A s and B s and so on (see 23.4.2.2). If you prefer an outline, use one, especially if your project is relatively short. The problem is
that an outline can force you to specify too much too soon and so lock up a final form before you ve done your best thinking.
To avoid that risk, many researchers, including those outside the academic world, plan long reports on a storyboard. A
storyboard is like an outline spread over several pages, with lots of space for adding data and ideas as you go. It is more flexible than
an outline: it can help you plan your search for evidence, organize your argument, write a first draft, and test a final one. As opposed
to lines in an outline, you can physically move storyboard pages around without having to print a new plan every time you try out a
new organization. You can spread its pages across a wall, group related pages, and put minor sections below major ones to create a
picture of your project that shows you at a glance the design of the whole and your progress through it.
2.3.1 State Your Question and Working Hypotheses
To start a storyboard, state at the top of its first page your question and working hypothesis as exactly as you can. Then add plausible
alternatives to help you see more clearly its limits and strengths. Add new hypotheses as you think of them, and cross off those you
prove wrong. But save them, because you might be able to use one of them in your introduction (see 10.1.1).
2.3.2 State Your Reasons
Put at the top of separate pages each reason that might support your best hypothesis, even if you have only one or two (for more on
reasons, see 5.4.2). Imagine explaining your project to a friend. You say, I want to show that Alamo stories helped develop a unique
Texan identity, and your friend asks, Why do you think so? Your reasons are the general statements that you offer to support your
answer: Well, first, the stories distorted facts to emphasize what became central to Texan identity; second, the stories were first used
to show that Texas (and the Wild West) was a new kind of frontier; third, and so on.
If you can think of only one or two reasons (you ll usually need more), put placeholders at the tops of pages: Reason 3: Something
about Alamo stories making Texans feel special. If you know only how you want a reason to support your answer, state that: Reason
4: Something to show that Alamo stories were more than just myth. Each reason, of course, needs support, so for each reason, ask
Why do I think that? What evidence will I need to prove it? That will help you focus your search for evidence (see 2.3.3 and 5.4.2).
If you re new to your topic or early in your project, your reasons may be only educated guesses that you ll change; if you don t,
you might not be self-critical enough. But a list of reasons, no matter how speculative, is the best framework to guide your research
and focus your thinking, and certainly better than no reasons at all.
2.3.3 Sketch in the Kind of Evidence You Should Look For
Every field prefers its own kinds of evidence numbers, quotations, observations, historical facts, images, and so on. So for each
reason, sketch the kind of evidence that you think you ll need to support it. Even imagine what the most convincing evidence would
look like. If you can t imagine the kind of evidence you ll need, leave that part of the page blank, then read secondary sources to find
out the kind of evidence that researchers in your field favor (see 3.1.2).
2.3.4 Look at the Whole
Lay the pages on a table or tape them on a wall. Then step back and look at their order. When you plan a first draft, you must put its
parts in some order, so you might as well think about one now. Can you see a logic in your order? cause and effect? narrative time?
relative importance? complexity? length? (See 6.2.5 for more principles of order.) Try out different orders. This storyboard isn t your
final plan; it s only a tool to guide your thinking and organize what you find.
When you fill a page, try drafting that section, because writing out your ideas can improve your thinking at every stage of your
project.
Someday you may have the leisure to amble through sources, reading just what interests you. Such random browsing has opened
up important lines of research. But if your report is due in a month or so, you can t wait for lightning to strike; you need a plan. A
storyboard is a simple and reliable device to help you create one.

2.4 Organize a Writing Support Group
A down side of scholarly research is its isolation. Except for group projects, you ll read, think, and write mostly alone. But it doesn t
have to be that way, at least not entirely. Look for someone other than your instructor or advisor who will talk with you about your
progress, review your drafts, even pester you about how much you have written. That might be a generous friend, but look first for
another writer so that you can comment on each other s ideas and drafts.
Better yet is a writing group of four or five people working on their own projects who meet regularly to discuss one another s
work. Early on, start each meeting with a summary of each person s project in that three-part sentence: I m working on the topic X,
because I want to find out Y, so that I (and you) can better understand Z. As your projects develop, start with an elevator story, a
short summary of your research that you might give someone in the elevator on the way to the meeting. It should include that threepart sentence, a working hypothesis, and the major reasons supporting it (see 13.4).

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In later stages, the group shares outlines and drafts so that they can serve as surrogate readers to anticipate how your final
readers will respond. If your group has a problem with your draft, so will your final readers. They can even help you brainstorm
when you bog down. But for most writers, a writing group is most valuable for the discipline it imposes. It is easier to meet a
schedule when you know you must report your progress to others.
Writing groups are standard practice for those preparing theses or dissertations. But the rules may differ for a class paper. Some
teachers think that a group or writing partner might provide more help than is appropriate, so be clear with your instructor about
what your group will do. If you don t, she may decide the assistance you have received is inappropriate (see 7.10).

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3

3.1

Finding Useful Sources

Understand the Kinds of Sources Readers Expect You to Use
3.1.1
3.1.2
3.1.3

3.2

Record Your Sources Fully, Accurately, and Appropriately
3.2.1
3.2.2

3.3

Look for Someone Who Knows Something about Your Topic
Skim the Internet
Talk to Reference Librarians
Browse in Your Reference Area
Skim a Few Specialized Reference Works
Search Your Library Catalog
Search Guides to Periodical Literature
Browse the Shelves
For Advanced Projects, Follow Bibliographic Trails

Evaluate Sources for Relevance and Reliability
3.4.1
3.4.2
3.4.3

3.5

Determine Your Citation Style
Record Bibliographic Data

Search for Sources Systematically
3.3.1
3.3.2
3.3.3
3.3.4
3.3.5
3.3.6
3.3.7
3.3.8
3.3.9

3.4

Consult Primary Sources for Evidence
Read Secondary Sources to Learn from Other Researchers
Read Tertiary Sources for Introductory Overviews

Evaluate the Relevance of Sources
Evaluate the Reliability of Print Sources
Evaluate the Reliability of Online Sources

Look beyond the Usual Kinds of References

Once you have at least a question and perhaps a working hypothesis along with a few tentative reasons for supporting it, you can
start looking for the data you ll need to support your reasons and test your hypothesis. In this chapter we explain how to find those
data and in the next how to work with them. But don t think of finding sources and reading them as separate steps. Once you have a
promising source, read it to find other sources. And as you fill your storyboard with notes, you ll discover gaps and new questions
that only more sources can fill. So while we discuss finding and using sources as two steps, you ll more often do them repeatedly and
simultaneously.

3.1 Understand the Kinds of Sources Readers Expect You to Use
Depending on your experience, readers will expect you to use different levels of sources, called primary, secondary, and tertiary
(think first-, second-, and thirdhand). These aren t sharply defined categories, but they roughly characterize how researchers think
about most sources.
3.1.1 Consult Primary Sources for Evidence
In fields such as literary studies, the arts, and history, primary sources are original works diaries, letters, manuscripts, images,
films, film scripts, recordings, and musical scores created by writers, artists, composers, and so on. Those sources provide data the
words, images, and sounds that you use as evidence to support your reasons. Data can also be objects: coins, clothing, tools, and
other artifacts from the period or belonging to a person you re studying.
In fields such as economics, psychology, chemistry, and so on, researchers typically collect data through observation and
experiment. In others, researchers gather evidence through interviews. (To conduct effective interviews, you must use reliable
methods for eliciting and recording the information you collect.) In such fields, evidence consists of the data that researchers collect.
The primary sources for those collected data are the publications that first publish them, ranging from government and commercial
databases to scholarly journals.
Experienced researchers look for data in primary sources first. If, for example, you were writing on Alamo stories, you d try to
find sources written at the time letters, diaries, eyewitness reports, and so on.
3.1.2 Read Secondary Sources to Learn from Other Researchers
Secondary sources are books and articles that analyze primary sources, usually written by and for other researchers. A report in a
scholarly journal analyzing Alamo stories would be a secondary source for researchers working on those stories. Secondary sources

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also include specialized encyclopedias and dictionaries that offer essays written by scholars in a field. You use secondary sources for
three purposes:
1. To keep up with current research. Researchers read secondary sources to keep up with the work of other researchers, to inform
and refine their thinking, and to motivate their own work by adding to a published line of research.
2. To find other points of view. A research report is not complete until the researcher acknowledges and responds to the views of
others and to his readers predictable questions and disagreements. You can find most of those other points of view in secondary
sources. What alter natives to your ideas do they offer? What evidence do they cite that you must acknowledge? Some new
researchers think they weaken their case if they mention any view opposing their own. The truth is the opposite. When you
acknowledge competing views, you show readers that you not only know those views but can confidently respond to them. For
more on this, see 5.4.3.
More important, you must use those competing views to improve your own. You can t understand what you think until you
understand why a rational person might think differently. So as you look for sources, don t look just for those that support your
views. Be alert as well for those that contradict them.
3. To find models for your own research and analysis. You can use secondary sources to find out not just what others have written
about your topic but how they have written about it, as models for the form and style of your own report. Imagine a secondary
source as a colleague talking to you about your topic. As you respond, you d want to sound like some one who knows the field,
and so you d try to learn how she reasons, the language she uses, the kinds of evidence she offers, and the kinds she rarely or
never uses. The conversation would be in writing, so you d even imitate stylistic details such as whether she writes in long
paragraphs or breaks up her pages with subheads and bullet points (common in the social sciences, less common in the
humanities).
You can also use a secondary source as a model for your conceptual analysis. If, for example, you were analyzing Alamo stories,
you might study how a source treats Custer s Last Stand. Is its approach psychological, social, historical, political? Its particular
reasons or evidence will probably be irrelevant to your project, but you might support your answer with the same kinds of data
and reasoning, perhaps even following the same organization.
So if you come across a source that s not exactly on your topic but treats one like it, skim it to see how that researcher thinks
about his material and presents it. (You don t have to cite that source if you use only its general logic, but you may cite it to give
your own approach more authority.)
Researchers use data reported in secondary sources only when they can t find them in primary sources. Then they re cautious
about using those secondary sources, because secondhand reports of data have a high error rate. If you re doing very advanced work,
check the accuracy of important quotations, facts, or numbers from secondary sources. Those who publish in respected places rarely
misreport deliberately, but they make careless mistakes more often than nonexperts think or experts admit.
Of course, if you were studying how the Alamo story has been analyzed, then secondary sources offering those analyses would be
your primary sources.
If you re new to a field, you may find secondary sources hard to read: they assume a lot of background knowledge, and many
aren t clearly written (see 11.2). If you re working on a topic new to you, you might begin with an overview in a specialized
encyclopedia or reliable tertiary source.
3.1.3 Read Tertiary Sources for Introductory Overviews
Tertiary sources are based on secondary sources, usually written for nonspecialists. They include general encyclopedias and
dictionaries, as well as newspapers and magazines like Time and the Atlantic Monthly and commercial books written for a general
audience. Well-edited general encyclopedias offer a quick overview of many topics. Beware, however, of online encyclopedias, such
as Wikipedia, that rely on anonymous contributions rather than on carefully edited entries written by established researchers.
Wikipedia has proved to be relatively accurate in the sciences, but overall it is uneven and sometimes wrong. Never cite it as an
authoritative source.
Be similarly cautious about using magazine and newspaper articles. Some describe research reported in secondary sources
reliably, but most oversimplify or simply misreport it. You would, of course, treat such a source as primary if you were studying how
it deals with a topic, such as gender bias in the Encyclopedia Britannica or hoaxes in Wikipedia.
Once you understand kinds of sources, you can begin looking for them.

3.2 Record Your Sources Fully, Accurately, and Appropriately
Before you look for sources, you should know how to cite the ones you find. Your readers will trust your report only if they trust your
evidence, and they won t trust your evidence if they can t find your sources. Your first obligation as a researcher is to cite your
sources accurately and fully so that your readers can find them.
3.2.1 Determine Your Citation Style
Most fields require a specific citation style. The two most common ones are described in detail in part 2:
■ notes-bibliography style (or simply bibliography style), used widely in the humanities and in some social sciences (see chapters 16
and 17)
■ author-date style (or parenthetical citations-reference list style), used in most social sciences and in the natural sciences (see
chapters 18 and 19)
If you are uncertain which style to use, consult your instructor. Before you start compiling your list of sources, read the general
introduction to citations in chapter 15 and then, depending on the citation style you are required to use, read the introduction to

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bibliography style (chapter 16) or author-date style (chapter 18).
3.2.2 Record Bibliographic Data
To save time and avoid errors, record all the citation information you will need when you first find a source. Most of this information
appears on the title page of a book or at the head of a journal article. The specific information you need depends on the type of
source, but for each source, record at least the following:
■ Who wrote or assembled the source?
■ author(s)
■ editor(s)
■ translator(s)
■ What data identify the source?
■ title and subtitle
■ title and subtitle of any larger work that contains the source (such as a collection, journal, or newspaper)
■ page numbers if the source appears in a larger work
■ volume number
■ issue number
■ edition number
■ for online sources, URL and date you accessed the material
■ Who published the source and when?
■ publisher s name
■ place of publication
■ date of publication
For your own use, you might record Library of Congress call numbers. You won t include them in bibliographic citations, but you
may find them helpful if you must consult the source again.
At some point, you ll need to format this bibliographic information into your required citation style, so you should record your
sources in that style now. You can find templates and examples for bibliography style in figure 16.1 and chapter 17; for author-date
style, refer to figure 18.1 and chapter 19.
As you record these data, you ll be tempted to take shortcuts, because it s boring work and rules about periods, commas, and
parentheses can feel like nit-picking. But nothing labels you a beginner faster than citations that are inappropriate, or worse,
incomplete or inaccurate. So get in the habit of recording bibliographic data for a source fully, accurately, and appropriately the
moment you handle it. There are computer programs that automatically format citations for you. They are useful aids, but they
cannot substitute for your own knowledge of proper citation forms and methods, and not all of the software works perfectly.

3.3 Search for Sources Systematically
As you search for sources, you must be knowledgeably systematic, because if you miss an important one, you ll lose credibility.
3.3.1 Look for Someone Who Knows Something about Your Topic
You might start by asking around to find someone who knows something about your topic and standard reference works on it:
advanced students, faculty, even people outside the academic community. You might look up your topic in the yellow pages of the
phonebook. You won t always find someone, but you might get lucky.
3.3.2 Skim the Internet
Before college, many students do research only on the Internet, because their high school libraries are small, because they need to
find only a few sources, and because their teachers aren t particular about the quality of those sources. However, in many fields
important and significant research is increasingly either published or archived online, so you can often do useful preliminary work
with a scholarly search engine such as Google Scholar. The best of these not only will give you a rough idea of the kinds of sources
available but will also identify how many times a particular source has been cited in other books or articles on the topic. (If you find
sources that are cited hundreds or thousands of times by other writers, you should familiarize yourself with them.) Online databases
and search engines also frequently tag their results with associated search keywords. At this stage in your research, following these
trails of related search terms can help put your research question into contexts that might not otherwise occur to you. But if you
search just the Internet, you ll miss important sources that you ll find only by poking around in your library. If your library catalog is
online, you can start there (see 3.3.6). Once again, you ll work most efficiently if you have a plan.
3.3.3 Talk to Reference Librarians
If you don t know how to find what you need, ask a librarian. Most college libraries offer tours of reference rooms and special
collections as well as short seminars on how to search the catalog, databases, and other sources of information. If you re a new
researcher, seize every opportunity to learn online search techniques in your field.
You can also talk to librarians who specialize in your area. They won t find sources for you, but they will help you look for them. If
you have a research question, share it: I m looking for data on X because I want to find out If you have a working hypothesis and
reasons, share them too: I m looking for data to show Y [your reason] because I want to claim Zyour hypothesis]. Rehearse your

27

questions to avoid wasting your time and theirs.
3.3.4 Browse in Your Reference Area
Researchers in all fields share common values and habits of thought, but every field has its own ways of doing things. To learn about
the ways of your field, browse the shelves in your library s reference room that hold guides to your field s particular research
methods, databases, and special resources (in the bibliography, see items in category 3 in your field). At least familiarize yourself
with the following resources (in the bibliography, see category 4 for lists of sources in your field; many are also online):
■ a bibliography of works published each year in your field, such as Philosopher s Index or Education Index
■ summary bibliographies of works on a specific topic collected over several years (Bibliographic Index is a bibliography of
bibliographies)
■ collections of abstracts that summarize articles in newspapers and in professional journals
■ reviews of the year s work; look for a title in your field beginning with Reviews in
■ for new fields, websites maintained by individuals or scholarly associations
If you know even a little of the secondary literature on your topic, you can begin looking for more substantive sources (skip to 3.3.73.3.8). If you don t, you might start with some specialized reference works.
3.3.5 Skim a Few Specialized Reference Works
Start by looking up your topic in a relevant specialized encyclopedia or dictionary such as the Encyclopedia of Philosophy or the
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, where you may find an overview of your topic and often a list of standard primary and
secondary sources (in the bibliography, see items in categories 1 and 2 in your field).
3.3.6 Search Your Library Catalog
As soon as you find one recent book relevant to your topic, look it up in your library s online catalog to
find its Library of Congress subject headings; they will be at the bottom of the entry. For example, the online entry for this book
includes these two topics:
SUBJECT HEADINGS IN BOOKS.

1. Dissertations, Academic. 2. Academic writing.
You can click on the subject headings to find other books on the same topics. Many of those sources will have still more subject
headings that can lead you to still more sources; it can turn into an endless trail.
Also search your online catalog using keywords from your question or working hypothesis Alamo, Texas independence,
James Bowie. If you find too many titles, start with those published in the last ten years by well-known university presses. For a
wider selection, search WorldCat if your library subscribes. Otherwise, search the Library of Congress catalog at http://www.loc.gov.
It has links to large university catalogs. Start early if you expect to get books on interlibrary loan.
KEYWORDS.

If most sources on your topic are articles, locate a recent one in your library s online databases. Its database entry will
include a list of keywords. Search for them to find more articles on your topic. In most cases, you can just click on them. Use the
keywords to search the library catalog as well. Some databases also provide abstracts of journal articles that you can skim for search
terms.
ARTICLES.

3.3.7 Search Guides to Periodical Literature
If you ve done research before, you re probably familiar with annual guides such as Readers Guide to Periodical Literature, which
cites sources such as magazines and newspapers. Most specialized fields also have yearly guides to secondary sources, such as Art
Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, and Abstracts in Anthropology (in the bibliography, see items in category 4 in your field). Most are
available online or in other digital forms.
All those resources will direct you to more sources, but none of them can substitute for the kind of in-library search that turns up
an unexpectedly useful source.
3.3.8 Browse the Shelves
You might think that online research is faster than walking around your library. But it can be slower, and if you work only online you
may miss crucial sources that you d find only in the library. More important, you ll miss the benefits of serendipity a chance
encounter with a source that you find only in person.
If you re allowed in the stacks (where all the books that you can check out are kept), find the shelf with books on your topic. Then
scan the titles on that shelf and the ones above, below, and on either side. Then turn around and skim titles behind you; you never
know. When you spot a promising title, especially on a university press book with a new binding, skim its table of contents, then its
index for keywords related to your question or its answer. Then skim its bibliography for titles that look relevant to your project. You
can do all that faster with books on a shelf than you can online.
If the book looks promising, skim its preface or introduction. If it still looks promising, set it aside for a closer look. Even if it
doesn t seem relevant, record its Library of Congress call number and bibliographic data (author, title, publisher, date of publication
and so on; see part 2 of this manual for the details), and in a few words summarize what the book seems to be about. A month later,
you might realize that it s more useful than you thought.
You can check tables of contents for many journals online, but browsing in the journals area of a library can be more productive.
Find the journals that have promising articles. Skim tables of contents for the prior ten years. Most volumes include a yearly

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summary table of contents. Then take a quick look at the journals shelved nearby. Skim their most recent tables of contents. You will
be surprised at how often you find a relevant article that you would have missed had you done your work entirely online.
If you are new to a field, you can get a rough impression of the academic quality of a journal by its look. If it s on glossy paper
with lots of illustrations, even advertisements, it might be more journalistic than scholarly. Those are not infallible signs of
unreliable scholarship, but they are worth considering.
3.3.9 For Advanced Projects, Follow Bibliographic Trails
If you re into advanced work, use the bibliographies in your sources to find new sources and use their bibliographies in turn to find
more. Do this:
■ Skim bibliographies of recent books on your topic; look at any work mentioned in all or most of them, along with other
publications by its author.
■ If you find a source useful, skim its index for authors mentioned on four or more pages.
■ Look for reviews of research in the first few paragraphs of journal articles.
■ Look for recent PhD dissertations even marginally related to your topic. Almost every dissertation reviews research in its first or
second chapter.
New sources are best, but you may discover an old one with data long neglected.

3.4 Evaluate Sources for Relevance and Reliability
You will probably find more sources than you can use, so you must evaluate their usefulness by skimming quickly for two criteria:
relevance and reliability.
3.4.1 Evaluate the Relevance of Sources
Once you decide a book might be relevant, skim it systematically:
■ If its index lists keywords related to your question or its answers, skim the pages on which those words occur.
■ Skim its introduction, especially its last page, where writers often outline their text.
■ Skim its last chapter, especially the first and last six or seven pages.
■ If you have time, do the same for chapters that look relevant, especially those for which the index lists many of your keywords.
■ If the source is a collection of articles, skim the editor s introduction.
Be sure that you re looking at a book s most recent edition. Over time researchers change their views, refining them, even rejecting
earlier ones.
If you re doing advanced work, read book reviews of promising sources (see section 4 of the bibliography of resources in your
field).
If your source is a journal article, do this:
■ Read its abstract, if any.
■ Skim the last two or three paragraphs of the introduction (or other opening section) and all of any section called Conclusion.
■ If the article has no separate introduction or conclusion, skim its first and last few paragraphs.
■ Skim the first paragraph or two after each subhead, if any.
If your source is online, do this:
■ If it looks like a printed article, follow the steps for a journal article.
■ Skim any section labeled Introduction, Overview, Summary, or the like. If there is none, look for a link labeled About the
Site or something similar.
■ If the site has a link labeled Site Map or Index, follow it and check the list, looking for keywords related to your question or its
answers. Click to skim those pages.
■ If the site has a search function, type in keywords from your topic.
3.4.2 Evaluate the Reliability of Print Sources
You can t judge a source until you read it, but there are signs of its reliability:
1. Is the author a reputable scholar? Most publications cite an author s academic credentials; you can find more with a search
engine. Most established scholars are reliable, but be cautious if the topic is a contested social issue such as gun control or
abortion. Even reputable scholars can have axes to grind, especially if their research is supported by a special interest group.
2. Is the source current? Many reputable scholars write books and articles popularizing the research of others. But by the time you
read these tertiary sources, they may be out of date. How fast a source dates varies by subject, so check with someone who knows
your field. For journal articles in the social sciences, more than ten years is pushing the limit. For books, figure fifteen or so.
Publications in the humanities have a longer life span.
3. Is the source published by a reputable press? You can trust most university presses, especially those at well-known schools. Before
they publish a manuscript, they ask experts to review it (a process called peer review). You can also trust some commercial
presses in some fields, such as Norton in literature, Ablex in sciences, or West in the law. Be skeptical of a commercial book that
makes sensational claims, even if its author has a PhD after his name.

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4. Was the article peer-reviewed? Most scholarly journals, both print and online, publish only peer-reviewed articles. Few
commercial magazines use peer review, and fewer still check an author s facts. If a report hasn t been peer-reviewed, use it
cautiously.
5. Has the source received good reviews? If the source is a book published more than a year ago, it may have been reviewed in a
journal in the field. Many fields have indexes to published reviews that tell you how others evaluate a source. (See the
bibliography.)
6. Has the source been frequently cited by others? You can roughly estimate how influential a source is by how often others cite it.
To determine that, consult a citation index (in the bibliography see section 4 in your field).
Those signs don t guarantee that a source is reliable, but they should give you reasonable confidence in it. If you can t find reliable
sources, acknowledge the limits of the ones you have. Of course, you may find an exciting research problem when you discover that a
source thought to be reliable is not.
3.4.3 Evaluate the Reliability of Online Sources
Evaluate online sources as you do those in print, but more cautiously. The number of reliable Internet sources grows every day, but
they are still islands in a swamp of misinformation. If you find data available only on the Internet, look for sites or online
publications with these signs of reliability:
1. The site is sponsored by a reputable organization. Some sites supported by individuals are reliable; most are not.
2. It is related to a reliable professional journal.
3. It supplements reliable print sources. Some journals use the Internet to host discussions among authors and readers, to offer data
too new to be in libraries, to archive data not in articles, or to present illustrations too expensive to print. Many government and
academic databases are only online.
4. It avoids heated advocacy for or against a contested social issue.
5. It does not make wild claims, attack other researchers, use abusive language, or make errors of spelling, punctuation, and
grammar.
6. It indicates when the site was last updated. If it has no date, be cautious.
Trust a site only if scholarly readers would trust those who maintain it. If you don t know who maintains it, be skeptical.
Online services now provide reliable editions of many older texts. You ll also find well-edited texts at many university sites. It s
one-stop shopping ; you never have to move from your chair. Online services are, however, far less complete than most university
libraries, and using them will teach you nothing about doing research in a real library. Some-day everything ever printed will be
available online (a future that gives some researchers mixed feelings). But until then, surfing the Internet can t completely replace
prowling the stacks.

3.5 Look beyond the Usual Kinds of References
If you are writing a class paper, you ll usually have to focus narrowly on the kinds of sources typically used in your field. But if you
are doing an advanced project such as an MA thesis or PhD dissertation, find an opportunity to search beyond them. If, for example,
you were doing a project on the economic effects of agricultural changes on London grain markets in 1600, you might read some
Elizabethan plays, look at pictures of working-class life, or look for commentary by religious figures on social behavior. Conversely, if
you were working on visual representations of daily life in London, you might work up the economic history of the period and place.
You can t do this in the limited time you have for short papers, but when you have months to work on a major project, try to look
beyond the standard kinds of references relevant to your question. When you do, you enrich not only your specific analysis but your
range of intellectual reference and your ability to synthesize diverse kinds of data, a crucial competence of an inquiring mind.

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4

4.1

Engaging Sources

Read Generously to Understand, Then Critically to Engage and Evaluate
4.1.1
4.1.2

4.2

Take Notes Systematically
4.2.1
4.2.2
4.2.3

4.3

Look for Creative Agreement
Look for Creative Disagreement

Create Templates for Notes
Know When to Summarize, Paraphrase, or Quote
Guard against Inadvertent Plagiarism

Take Useful Notes
4.3.1
4.3.2
4.3.3
4.3.4

Use Note-Taking to Advance Your Thinking
Take Notes Relevant to Your Question and Working Hypothesis
Record Relevant Context
Categorize Your Notes for Sorting

4.4

Write as You Read

4.5

Review Your Progress
4.5.1
4.5.2
4.5.3

4.6

Search Your Notes for an Answer
Invent the Question
Re-sort Your Notes

Manage Moments of Normal Panic

Once you find a source worth a close look, don t read it mechanically, just mining it for data to record. Note-taking is not clerical
work. When you take notes on a source thoughtfully, you engage not just its words and ideas but also its implications, consequences,
shortcomings, and new possibilities. Engage your source as if its writer were sitting with you, eager for a conversation (it s how you
should imagine your readers engaging you).

4.1 Read Generously to Understand, Then Critically to Engage and Evaluate
Take the time to read your most promising sources at least twice, first quickly and generously to understand them on their own
terms. If you disagree too soon, you can misunderstand or exaggerate a weakness.
Then reread them slowly and critically, as if you were amiably but pointedly questioning a friend; imagine his or her answers,
then question them. If you disagree, don t just reject a source: read it in ways that will encourage your own original thinking.
You probably won t be able to engage your sources fully until after you ve done some reading and developed a few ideas of your
own. But from the outset, be alert for ways to read your sources not passively, as a consumer, but actively and creatively, as an
engaged partner. At some point, better earlier than later, you must look for ways to go beyond your sources, even when you agree
with them.
4.1.1 Look for Creative Agreement
It is a happy moment when a source confirms your views. But if you just passively agree, you won t develop any of your own ideas.
So, while generously acknowledging the scope of your source s argument, try to extend what your source claims: What new cases
might it cover? What new insights can it provide? Is there confirming evidence your source hasn t considered? Here are some ways
to agree creatively.
4.1.1.1 OFFER ADDITIONAL SUPPORT.

You have new evidence to support a source s claim.

Smith uses anecdotal evidence to show that the Alamo story had mythic status beyond Texas, but a study of big-city newspapers
offers better evidence.
1. Source supports a claim with old evidence, but maybe you can offer new evidence.
2. Source supports a claim with weak evidence, but maybe you can offer stronger evidence.
4.1.1.2 CONFIRM UNSUPPORTED CLAIMS.

You can prove something that a source has only assumed or speculated.

Smith recommends visualization to improve sports performance, but a study of the mental activities of athletes shows why that is

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good advice.
1. Source only speculates that X might be true, but maybe you can offer evidence to show that it definitely is.
2. Source assumes that X is true, but maybe you can prove it.
4.1.1.3 APPLY A CLAIM MORE WIDELY.

You can extend a position to new areas.

Smith has shown that medical students learn physiological processes better when they are explained with many metaphors rather
than by just one. The same appears to be true for engineers learning physical processes.
1. Source correctly applies his claim to one situation, but maybe it can apply to new ones.
2. Source claims that X is true in a specific situation, but maybe it s true in general.
4.1.2 Look for Creative Disagreement
It is even more important to note when you disagree with a source, because that might suggest a working hypothesis for your whole
report. (Here again, you must first be fair to what your source actually argues; avoid developing a hypothesis based on hasty or
deliberate misinterpretations of sources.) So instead of just noting that you disagree with another writer s views, use that
disagreement to encourage your own productive thinking. Here are some kinds of disagreement (these aren t sharply defined
categories; many overlap).
4.1.2.1 CONTRADICTIONS OF KIND.

A source says something is one kind of thing, but maybe it s another kind.

Smith says that certain religious groups are considered “cults” because of their strange beliefs, but those beliefs are no different in
kind from standard religions.
1. Source claims that X is a kind of Y (or like it), but maybe it s not.
2. Source claims that X always has Y as one its features or qualities, but maybe it doesn t.
3. Source claims that X is normal/good/significant/useful/moral/interesting/ , but maybe it s not.
(You can reverse those claims and the ones that follow to state the opposite: though a source says X is not a kind of Y, you can show
that it is.)
4.1.2.2 PART-WHOLE CONTRADICTIONS.

You can show that a source mistakes how the parts of something are related.

Smith has argued that sports are crucial to an educated person, but in fact athletics have no place in college.
1. Source claims that X is a part of Y, but maybe it s not.
2. Source claims that part of X relates to another of its parts in a certain way, but maybe it doesn t.
3. Source claims that every X has Y as one of its parts, but maybe it doesn t.
4.1.2.3 DEVELOPMENTAL OF HISTORICAL CONTRADICTIONS.

You can show that a source mistakes the origin and development of a topic.

Smith argues that the world population will continue to rise, but it will not.
1. Source claims that X is changing, but maybe it s not.
2. Source claims that X originated in Y, but maybe it didn t.
3. Source claims that X develops in a certain way, but maybe it doesn t.
4.1.2.4 EXTERNAL CAUSE-EFFECT CONTRADICTIONS.

You can show that a source mistakes a causal relationship:

Smith claims that juveniles can be stopped from becoming criminals by “boot camps.” But evidence shows that it makes them more
likely to become criminals.
1.
2.
3.
4.

Source claims that X causes Y, but maybe it doesn t.
Source claims that X causes Y, but maybe they are both caused by Z.
Source claims that X is sufficient to cause Y, but maybe it s not.
Source claims that X causes only Y, but maybe it also causes Z.

Most contradictions don t change a conceptual framework, but when you can contradict a
standard view of things, you urge others to think in a new way.
4.1.2.5 CONTRADICTIONS OF PERSPECTIVE.

Smith assumes that advertising is a purely economic function, but it also serves as a laboratory for new art forms.
1. Source discusses X in the context of or from the point of view of Y, but maybe a new context or point of view reveals a new truth
(the new or old context can be social, political, philosophical, historical, economic, ethical, gender specific, etc.).
2. Source analyzes X using theory/value system Y, but maybe you can analyze X from a new point of view and see it in a new way.
As we said, you probably won t be able to engage sources in these ways until after you ve read enough to form some views of your
own. But if you keep these ways of thinking in mind as you begin to read, you ll engage your sources sooner and more productively.
Of course, once you discover that you can productively agree or disagree with a source, you should ask So what? So what if you

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can show that while Smith claims that easterners did not embrace the story of the Alamo enthusiastically, in fact many did?

4.2 Take Notes Systematically
Like the other steps in a research project, note-taking goes better with a plan.
4.2.1 Create Templates for Notes
You will take notes more reliably if you set up a system that encourages you to think beyond the mere content of your sources by
analyzing and organizing that content into useful categories. A few instructors still recommend taking notes in longhand on 3x5
cards, as in figure 4.1. A card like that may seem old-fashioned, but it provides a template for efficient note-taking, even if you take
notes on a laptop. (Start a new page for each general idea or claim that you record from a source.) Here is a plan for such a template:
■ At the top of each new page, create a space for bibliographic data (author, short title, page number).
■ Create another space at the top for keywords (see upper right of figure 4.1). Those words will later let you sort and re-sort your
notes by subject matter (for more on keywords, see 4.3.4).
■ Create different places on each new page for different kinds of notes. You might even label the places (see fig. 4.1, with places for
Claim, Data, and My Qs).
■ In particular, create a section specifically dedicated to your own responses, agreements, disagreements, speculations, and so on.
That will encourage you to do more than simply record the content of what you read.
■ When you quote the words of a source, record them