On-line Research Writing:  English 102 
Professor Gary Parks (gparks@shoreline.edu)
Shoreline Community College 
Shoreline, WA, USA 

Finding Research Writing

Before plunging into this assignment, you will need a little bit of background. This information is presented in more detail in Writing Research Papers (WRP) and the following review is no replacement for reading about it in WRP.

In academic research writing, the following types of information must be documented:

• quotation--material taken word for word from the source and placed in quotation marks
• paraphrase--source material changed into the writer's own words without altering the length of the passage much
• summary--source material changed into the writer's own words, much shorter than the original passage

Some students think that only quotation needs to be documented, but that is not the case. (Partly this confusion happens because many sources of popular writing, like magazines or the Web, do not have to follow academic research rules.) In academic research, another author's ideas and observations, even if changed into your own words (i.e., paraphrased or summarized) must also be documented. There are a variety of methods used to document researched information, depending on the discipline/field and the purpose of the writing. Methods include

• Modern Language Assocation style (MLA)-- used in the Humanities and other disciplines. This is the method we will use for this class. It is covered in Ch. 18 in WRP.
• American Psychological Associaton style (APA) -- used in most social sciences.
• Chicago Style -- used in most popular non-fiction (Technopoly is an example.)
• Chemical and Biological Engineers style (CBE) -- used in many science fields.

There are others, but these are the primary types encountered in academic writing. Later in the quarter, you will learn more details about these systems, especially MLA style.

The research writing you find does not have to be in any specific documentation style (i.e., MLA, APA, Chicago style, etc.) but it must contain a two-part documentation system for indicating source-use, including:

1. Some kind of signal within the writing indicating that source material was used. This signal may be information in parenthesis, or raised or non-raised numbers indicating source notes, or hyperlinks, or other methods. Please note: quotation marks alone do not satisfy this requirement, since they could not be used for paraphrases or summaries.
2. A listing of sources corresponding to the signals described above. In other words, the signals described in item #1 should lead you to further information about the sources used in the writing. This listing may be a Works Cited (MLA) or References listing (APA) at the end of the paper, or it may be endnotes or even footnotes.

Assignment Description: For this assignment, you must find and answer some brief questions about a piece of research writing that contains documented information as described above. There are no restrictions on where you find this writing aside from the fact that course material or textbooks cannot be used and it cannot be a paper you wrote. This can be an article in a journal, a Web-based piece of writing, an example essay in a different textbook, a source found in the library, information from a lecture, rally, or presentation, or any other piece of writing, short or long, that is documented with a two-part system as described above. .

Once you have found this piece of writing, study its documentation methods and answer the following questions about it. (You may cut and paste these into a course message in order to make your response):

1. What is the name of the research writing you found?
2. Who is its author (if one is listed)?
3. How / where did you find it?
4. Specifically, how is source use indicated in the text of the paper? In other words, what conventions or symbols or methods are used to indicate when information is borrowed from a source?
5. Are sources listed at the end of the paper/piece? If so, what is the listing of sources called?
6. How many sources did it use?
7. Indicate what documentation style this piece is written in. You can skim Ch 18-19 in WRP and also look at the sample essays in Ch. 21 for an indication of documentation styles.

It is not necessary to include the article or a link to it in your submission.

Purpose: This assignment will get you started thinking about the conventions of documented writing and it will provide you with an example of research writing.

Criteria: Use accurate spelling and wording. It is not necessary to answer questions with complete sentences if a one word or phrase answer will do. See the example of successful completion.

Format/How to Submit: Submit by course message to instructor. You may either put it in the body of the message (preferred), or as an attachment if it is a Word, text, or rtf document (.doc, .txt, or .rtf at the end of the filename). The attachment function for course messages is under the composition box; browse your way to the file.

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