COM 3.3a Conducting Research for Essays

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From the course by The University of Sydney

Academic Skills for University Success: Capstone

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The University of Sydney

Academic Skills for University Success: Capstone

оценки

Course 5 of 5 in the Specialization Academic Skills for University Success

This Specialization is aimed at preparing students for undergraduate study in an English-speaking university. The course equips you for full participation and engagement with your studies by building awareness and understanding of the core values and expectations of academic culture, and providing you with practical strategies to apply to your studies. In the Capstone Project, you will apply the academic knowledge and skills you have learnt throughout courses 1-4 to research, write and present a project proposal that addresses a complex, real-world problem related to your field of interest and/or future study. After completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Apply a range of idea generation techniques 2. Apply research strategies to search, collect, select, process, and cite information 3. Use the research process to develop and critically analyse ideas 4. Apply critical thinking skills to evaluate and analyse ideas and evidence 5. Use problem-solving skills to identify gaps in knowledge and define issues 6. Develop creative and innovative solutions to real-world problems 7. Use appropriate academic genres for written texts and multi-media presentations 8. Use written and oral skills to communicate ideas effectively for academic contexts

From the lesson

RESOURCES - Optional

This module is for the resources from the other courses you have studied. There is no new, or extra, material here. You do not have to watch any of this material.

IDL 2.1a The Scholarly and Cultural Record5:56

IDL 2.1b Defining Information 27:17

IDL 2.2b Understanding different kids of information (Journal Articles)6:08

IDL 2.4a Defining an Information Need7:34

IDL 2.3a Accessing Information3:55

IDL 2.4b Developing a Search Strategy5:14

IDL 2.4c Documenting & Evaluating the Search Strategy6:45

COM 3.3a Conducting Research for Essays7:27

COM 3.3b Conducting Research for Reports and Proposals4:58

Meet the Instructors

Katherine Olston
Deputy Director (Digital Learning)
University of Sydney Centre for English Teaching
Luke Alexander
Academic Literacy Instructor and MOOC Learning Instructor
Centre for English Teaching
Lydia Dutcher
Education Manager, Graduate Programs
Centre for English Teaching
Jessica Blackburn
Academic Literacy Instructor and MOOC Learning Designer
Centre for English Teaching

[MUSIC]

In this lesson, we'll be covering how to conduct research for essays.

Research is done in order to first explore a topic, and then to build your argument.

This is an important part of university study, and

with the exception of most examiner in class essays,

you'll be required to do research for all your essay.

But why?

As we mentioned previously, one of the purposes your instructor has in

setting essays, is to allow you to learn something more about a topic.

Essays are a focused, deeper form of learning.

Equally, your audience for an essay is not just your instructor, but the whole field.

And in order to engage in that conversation you

need to reference different parts of the conversation that have come before you.

Those are the rhetorical reasons why we research.

In practice, we research with three main reasons.

Firstly, you may realize that you need to find credible sources that support or

explain in clearer more precise ways certain points that you want to make.

Secondly, you may need to find more detail for specific ideas.

You might have a general understanding of a concept but you research in order to

more accurately define it or to find more detailed knowledge about it.

Lastly and most obviously, you research aspects of the topic or

concepts that you don't know.

You might look for alternative ideas, specific case studies, or examples, or

even different perspectives.

In these cases, you may need to research the leading experts in a topic,

and discover, as Cottrell suggests, what the central issues or

debates in the field are?

So how do you actually conduct research?

The first thing you should do when beginning to research a topic

is to organize yourself and make a plan.

You need to know the kinds of information that you're searching for and

how they will relate to or help you answer your question.

In order to do this properly, you need to have understood your question and

the topic.

Here, we want to stress that research needs to come after

you have put effort into understanding the question, analyzing the key concepts and

terms, and generating your own ideas.

One mistake students make is jumping straight into trying to

research the question when they haven't understood what the question is asking or

thought about there own ideas.

You might feel you don't know anything about the topic or

have no idea how to answer it, but that's rarely the case.

Your essays are based on the ideas and concepts you've been learning about in

the lectures and readings or discussing in tutorials.

Thus, start with what you already know and think about the topic.

Van Geyte called this developing a line of argument.

Greetham writes that, as students, we need to graft

the ideas we come across onto our own understanding and make them our own.

Only in this way will we be able to use these ideas skillfully and

persuasively when we come to write.

One of the ways you should try to understand and analyze your essay topic as

we've mentioned is by asking specific guiding questions about

the nature of the key concepts and other terms or parameters you've been given.

For those questions that you can't answer or for the knowledge you already possess,

you might need to do a bit of research to support, explain, or clarify your ideas.

You can do this by going through your lectures or set reading for the course and

seeing where you got your original idea from.

Though sometimes you'll need to engage with additional sources.

Remember, you don't need to read everything you've been given.

Look for the things that are relevant to your particular topic and question.

For those questions where you have a basic idea, you'll need to research in order to

add detail, or find out how someone else has defined what you're trying to say.

And lastly, for questions about topics you don't know,

you'll need to research to find the answer.

All of these are actually complicated tasks that require advanced research,

reading and organization skills.

As you progress, you'll notice that your research starts to shift.

Sometimes, you may find that your plan changes.

And new, broader questions develop from your research.

This is natural, but be careful not to get distracted by irrelevant information.

Always go back to your main question.

Keep it in the forefront of you mind either by periodically reminding yourself

of it or even writing the question out in large letters on a piece of paper and

sticking it in front of you.

Other times,

you'll notice that your research is becoming more focused and refined.

You research less what you don't know and

start to move into just using research as a support for what you want to say.

In fact there are a number of different ways that we use the evidence that we have

found in the research process to focus and refine the argument that we're making.

Sowton suggests that we use this evidence to clarify, add authority, or

provide support for our main ideas.

This is called expert, or corroborative evidence.

Cottrell goes further than this, and suggests that we use our research to show

the audience, for the essay, are instructors,

that we are mindful of the complexities and nuances of a particular subject.

Thus, we might use contradictory evidence in building an argument.

Contradictory evidence according to the University of Sydney right side cannot and

should not be ignored.

Though it can be softened or mitigated in order to strengthen our main argument.

Of course, the kind of research and the amount of research you'll need to do for

any given assignment will change depending on your particular rhetorical situation.

As always if you aren't

sure about any aspect of

the essay writing process,

ask your lecturer or tutor.

[MUSIC]

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