Research Assignment Page 1

Research Guide for Q4Research Project

Purpose: To create note cards, source cards, and write an introduction and one supporting paragraph responding to your topic

Objectives:

  • Create a minimum of 5 source cards and at least 2 note cards for each source
  • Create a minimum of 25 note cards
  • Find a minimum of 3 sources to use
  • Plan a research essay and write an introduction and one supporting paragraph using in-text citations
  • Document sources using a Works Cited Page

Step 1: Notecards and Notetaking – You will need to find answers to the focus questions and take notes on your findings. Be sure to create a source card for each source and then set up and take notes on the notecards. Remember, you are to write only ONE note per card.

Research Assignment Page 1

  • Source Cards record the bibliographic material needed to document where you find your information. It should also include a source letter in the upper right hand corner.

Sample Source Card:

A
"Becoming a Meteorologist." Weather.com. 12 Nov. 1999. The Weather Channel. 24 Nov. 1999 < learn_more/ resources/metro.html>.

Note Cards record the information you have gathered from your source. Regardless of the type of notes that you take, you need to be sure to record the location of the information by writing a source letter, a card number, and/or a page number on each source.

  • Direct quotations – take notes by writing word for word from the source, being sure to use quotation marks
  • Paraphrase – take notes by writing your own version of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.

Sample Note Card:

A 1
“In high school, develop your critical and analytical thinking. Take all required math and science courses, especially the advanced ones, such as calculus and the physical sciences. The study of weather includes chemistry, physics, and dynamics.”

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Step 2: Outlining and Organizing

  • Separate your source cards from your note cards.
  • Organize your note cards into the following topics:
  • Why do people want to deny that the Holocaust happened? What is in it for them?
  • Who are some of the major Holocaust deniers? What do they say happened?
  • Who are some of the key people who dispute what Holocaust deniers say? What do they argue?
  • How is Holocaust denial anti-Semitic?

Step 3: Write an Essay

  • Write a research essay using the information you have.
  • Introduction – Includes background information about the Holocaust
  • Paragraph #1 – Explain one aspect of the answer to your specific research topic

Step 4: MLA Formatting

  • Use parenthetical citation in your writing.
  • When you refer to the works of others in your text is you need to use parenthetical citation. Immediately following a quotation from a source or a paraphrase of a source's ideas, you place the authors name followed by a space and the relevant page number(s). When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name. Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work, or italicize or underline it if it's a longer work.
  • Your in-text citation will correspond with an entry in your Works Cited page

Sample for direct quotations and paraphrased material:

  • Human beings have been described as "symbol-using animals" (Burke 3).
  • Humans, like animals, often use symbols (Burke 3).
  • Use a works cited page which records information about the sources that you used for this paper.
  • Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper.
  • Label the page Works Cited (do not underline the words Works Cited or put them in quotation marks) and center the words Works Cited at the top of the page.
  • Double space all citations, but do not skip extra spaces between entries.
  • Indent the second and third line of an each entry.
  • Place entries in alphabetical order.

Sample Works Cited Page:

Burgess 3
Works Cited
Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House. Denver: MacMurray, 1999.
Selluga, Dino. Guide to Literary and Critical Theory. 28 Nov. 2003. Purdue
University. 25 Apr 2011 <