Alfino

Critical Thinking / Composition Project

Keep this guide to your research process with you as you search, retrieve, and read information related to your topic over the next couple of weeks. Also, print out the worksheet version of the guide, also on the course site. Eventually, you should compile a complete set of typed answers to each item below, so you will want to save an electronic copy and open it in your word processor to fill it in.

1. Identify your topic:

As a topic:

As a question (or set of questions):

2. Initial Thesaurus exercise:

Identify terms you plan to search with. Later come back to this list to note terms that were successful or unsuccessful.

3. Your relationship to the topic:

Do you already have a point of view on the topic or issue in question? Have you worked on it before (provide details)? Do you have some personal connection to the topic?

4. Predicting points of view:

What range of positions or points of view do you anticipate coming across? Try to guess what basic arguments you are likely to encounter. Make this as detailed as you can. As you research, note which of your predictions were confirmed. Pay particular attention to arguments that you did not anticipate.

5. Assess your current knowledge of the topic:

What do I know about the topic? What background information is relevant to this topic? Do I know how to find it?

Note: Reference suggestions: Try some references sources for filling in your general understanding of the topic. Then go back and update your search terms and research questions (items 2 and 7). It often happens that you focus your topic after some background reading. In that case, update item #1.

6. Identify sources of knowledge important for the project. Also, limits of knowledge.

What “disciplines of knowledge” (specific natural or social sciences, or humanities fields) might have information or research that is relevant to the topic?

Is there personal testimonial, essay writing, documentary or other recorded forms of direct experience that you should seek out on this topic?

Are there some basic questions about the topic that you think would be immensely helpful but which you doubt we will ever know the answer to?

7. Research Questions

Formulate specific questions that you think might be answered in the research and public record related to your topic. Note that you should often want to ask questions that require explanations.

As you do your research, try to keep track of questions that various sources do provide compatible or conflicting answers to.

Come back to this section periodically during the research process.

8. Connecting Research Questions to Sources.

In this section we match up particular research needs with available sources of information. These include searching proprietary databases in the Foley collection, book catalogs of public and research libraries, open internet searching, communications with organizations and individuals with specialized knowledge on the topic or question. Don’t forget that you are at a university with several hundred faculty who may study issues related to your topic.

9. Critical Bibliography

Keep a list of citations of key articles along with a sentence or two about the value or focus of each. We will be reviewing this bibliography mid way through the project.