UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN AFRICA, BARATON

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

A REVIEW OF “HOW TO WRITE A GREAT RESEARCH PAPER”BY CHIN, BEVERLIN ANN

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE ENGL105

(GROUP B): WRITING SKILLS

REVIEWED BY

AMOS LIPROTICH MELI

(STUDENT ID: SAMOME2111)

Tel: 0718050022

INSTRUCTOR:

DR. ARIZONA M. BAONGOLI

30th APRIL 2021

PART 1: QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BOOK (20 MARKS)
1. Provide the bibliographic information about the book
2. Write a brief biographical information about the author of the book
3. What was the purpose of the book? Did the author accomplish this purpose?
4. Who is the target audience for the book?
5. What makes this book worth reading in connection to writing skills?
6. Discuss what you particularly liked and disliked about the book. Explain why.
7. Give your opinion on the book. Was it easy or difficult to understand and why?
8. What, if anything, makes this book important for academic writing?
9. What is the genre? Fiction or non-fiction? Please explain your answer
10. What, if anything, makes this an important work? What does the reader stand to gain by
reading this book?
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BOOK
1. The target audience for the book are teachers, librarians, students and researchers.
2. The purpose of this book is to equip the target audience with the relevant skills on how
to carry out a research work, draft it and finally present it effectively. The author
accomplished this by providing a clear and detailed explanation of the research
procedure and pointing out the desired methods of citation, documentation, writing the
outline among others.
3. What I particularly liked about this book is that it clearly and exhaustively discuss the
key guidelines on writing the research paper by giving illustrations on how the various
steps are handled, for example, this book has clearly illustrated how to write citation for
your research work. One of the citation methods is footnotes, and the book says that”
Footnotes are notes that appear at the bottom of each page, and endnotes belong at
the end of the paper. To create the notes, you assign a number, beginning with 1, for
each fact or idea to document.”(pg.65).
4. My opinion on the book is that it is easy to understand. The book uses simple English,
good sentence structures and also provides illustrations which makes it easier for the
reader to internalize the concepts presented.
5. What makes this book important for academic writing is that it presents the basic rules
that are important in academic writing. For example, the book has exhausted all the
steps in writing a research paper by giving illustrations of each step and by presenting
guidelines for each step.
6. This book belongs to the non-fiction genre. It seeks to explain the steps in carrying out a
research, which is normally done practically by students and other researchers in the
world that we live in.
7. Readers of this book stand to gain the practical know-how on collecting information for
research, writing the research paper and finally presenting it.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK
Chin, Beverly Ann. How to write a great research paper: John Wiley & sons, Inc.
(2004, Canada. 119pp.). ISBN 0-471-43154-0
Reviewed by Amos kiprotich meli.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction…Pg1
2. Find a Topic…Pg3
3. Look It Up…Pg17
4. Take Notes, page 33
5. Outline Your Paper, page 45
6. Create Your First Draft, page 57
7. Revise and Edit Your Draft, page 69
8. Present Your Paper, page 83
9. Appendix A: Scheduling Form, page 91
10. Appendix B: Model Research Paper, page 93
11.Appendix C: Self-Evaluation, page 103
12.Index, page105
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUTY THE AUTHOR
Beverly Ann Chin is Professor of English, Director of the English Teaching Program, former
director of the Montana Writing Project, and a former President of the National Council of
Teachers of English. She is a nationally recognized leader in English language arts standards,
curriculum instruction, and assessment. Several schools and states call upon her to help them
develop programs in reading and writing across the curriculum. Dr. Chin has edited and written
several books and articles in the field of English language arts. She is the author of On Your
Own: Writing and On Your Own: Grammar.
BOOK GENRE.
The genre of this book is non-fiction; this is because it talks of research papers which are commonly
a must to be written when doing a research. For a research to be credited it must have a valid and
written information which has been researched and confirmed

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

The book begins by defining a research paper, and pointing out what a person gains by writing a
research paper. It defines a research paper as a piece of writing that provides information
about a particular topic that a person has researched. It points out that a person gains the
following by writing a research paper; learning a great deal about a topic that interests you, gaining
the experience of taking on a task, seeing it through to the end, and being proud of your
accomplishment. It points out that after a person has completed his or her research paper, he
or she will get to know how rewarding it can be. It also answers a question that many students
ask about research papers: “What’s the point? What will I gain from doing this?” it gives the
most appropriate answer that the person simply gains experience in writing research papers.
The author then proceeds to discuss how to find information for the research, where she
argues that to get a basic overview of information on any topic,” start with the encyclopedia
and the Internet. Many people have access to these sources right in their own homes, but they
are also available at most libraries.” She also points out that the scholar should also use the
library catalogue to find sources for his or her research paper. It also discusses how to write
the sources on the “source cards”, and points out that writing the source cards is important as
the researcher will be required to make a reference list of the sources used in the research
paper.
It also discusses how to design an outline for the research paper. It points out the two types of
outlines that the researcher is at free will to adopt- decimal outline and standard outline. In
addition, it also discuss how to use note cards in putting down the notes, where it stresses that
only a single idea should be put down on each note card. It also shows the various types of
notes- personal notes, summary, paraphrase and quotation. It then goes on to show how to
write the draft. The author says that drafting simply means putting words down on a paper
(pg.57).The author argues that scholars should present their ideas in a way that makes sense
and holds the readers’ interest. The scholar should also make sure that he or she has cited his
sources correctly, using the correct documentation style. At this point, the scholar should
follow the outline for easy drafting.
In addition, the book also discusses the revision and editing of the draft. It argues that the
researcher should check all parts of his work. He should read it again from the beginning to the
end and make improvements (pg.69). The scholar should spell check his work, checks his
grammar and punctuation and breaks up paragraphs that are too long.” If you’ve written a
paragraph that seems to go on forever or that is much longer than the other paragraphs in your
paper, consider breaking it up into two shorter ones. Overly long paragraphs can lose readers’
attention.”(pg.75).
The book goes forth and argues that the researcher should take pride in his bibliography. “A
bibliography usually appears at the end of a paper on its own separate page. All bibliography
entries—books, periodicals, Web sites, and nontext sources such radio broadcasts—are listed
together in alphabetical order. Books and articles are alphabetized by the author’s last
name.”(pg. 79).
The book winds up by pointing out how to present the research paper. The author argues that
the researcher should decide on the format in which he wants to present it- in printed or
handwritten form, or by making an oral presentation. The researcher should do his best to
show his work in its best light. “You probably plan to turn in your work in printed or
handwritten form, but you also may be making an oral presentation. However you plan to
present your paper, do your best to show it in its best light.”(pg. 83).
CORE POINTS OF THE BOOK
This book points out the importance of doing a research. It argues that the researcher learns a
great deal about a topic that interests him, gains the experience of taking on a task, seeing it
through to the end, and being proud of his accomplishment. It also points out that after a
person has completed his or her research paper, he or she will get to know how rewarding it
can be.” You’ll learn a great deal about a topic that interests you. You’ll start out knowing only a
little about that topic and end up an expert in your own right. And perhaps most importantly,
you’ll learn how to do research. This is a skill you’ll use all your life.”(pg.2).
The second key involves taking notes. There are two methods of taking notes; use of index cards and use
of a computer. In the note cards, it should be indicated whether the notes are paraphrased, whether it’s
a summary, a quotation or personal notes. Arrangement in a computer is the same as the note cards
except that a computer uses cut- and paste rather than moving of cards.

It also answers a question that many students ask about research papers: “What’s the point?
What will I gain from doing this?” it gives the most appropriate answer that the person simply
gains experience in writing research papers. (pg.1).
This book has intensively discussed the basic steps in carrying out the research, drafting it,
editing the draft and finally presenting the research paper proper. On editing the draft, the
book points out that the researcher should read it again from the beginning to the end and
make improvements. The researcher should also spell check his work, checks his grammar and
punctuation and break up paragraphs that are too long since they can lose the readers’
attention. (pg.69).
This book has also discussed how the researcher should efficiently use his or her sources for the
research. It argues that the researcher should use the table of contents in the particular book to
locate the topic or sub-topic that deals with the information he or she needs, since some
sources might be too bulky to read all of its sections within a short time. “Most articles and
some of the books you use, especially those from the children’s room at the library, are
probably short enough that you can read them from beginning to end in a reasonable amount
of time. Others, however, may be too long for you to do that, and some are likely to cover
much more than just your topic. Use the table of contents and the index in a longer book to
find the parts of the book that contain information on your topic.” (pg. 34).
The last key is about looking it up. It also involves preparation of bibliography cards also called source
cards. They are used to record information about every source. They should contain source number, call
number and information about the source. This information include, the title of the article, author, date
of publication, publishers, medium and the specific page or time in which one read the article.

This book explains the concept of plagiarism. The author says that plagiarism is the act of using
a persons’ wordings and ideas as your own without giving credit to the sources. “Have you ever
heard the word plagiarism? It means copying someone else’s words and claiming them as your
own. It’s really a kind of stealing, and there are strict rules against it.” (Pg.39-40).
CRETIQUE OF THIS BOOK
Strengths

This book explains how plagiarism occurs and states clearly how this plagiarism can be avoided by the
researcher. According to page 40 of this book, it states that, “When it comes time to draft the paper, the
student doesn’t even remember that those words were copied from a source, and the words find their
way into the draft and then into the final paper. Without intending to do so, that student has
plagiarized, or stolen, another person’s words. The way to avoid plagiarism is to paraphrase, or write
down ideas in your own words rather than copy them exactly”. This is a very great strength as it guides
researchers on how to avoid this plagiarism.

This book explains how to record notes on note cards, it explains a standard way of recording notes on
note cards. According to page 35 of this book it states how to put down notes on note cards. “Write only
one idea on each card. Even if you write only a few words on one card, don’t write anything about a new
idea on that card. Begin a new card instead. Also, keep all your notes for one card only on that card. It’s
fine to write on both the front and back of a card, but don’t carry the same note over to a second card. If
you have that much to write, you probably have more than one idea. After you complete a note card,
write the source number of the book you used in the upper left corner of the card. Below the source
number, write the exact number or numbers of the pages on which you found the information”.

This book explains many sources of the research information and how to access them and get the
information necessary for your research process. According to page 25, passage one of this book, it
states that, “In addition to books and periodicals, other sources can add up-to-the-minute information
to your research, including news- paper articles, articles on the Internet, and a variety of non-print
sources. Most big-city newspapers have Web sites that offer an indexed list of all the articles they have
published for years. To get the major newspaper Web sites, type in the name of the newspaper”. It also
explains how to get the correct tittle of the article from the web and also articles which are mainly for
academic purposes.

This book explains many sources of the research information and how to access them and get the
information necessary for your research process. According to page 25, passage one of this book, it
states that, “In addition to books and periodicals, other sources can add up-to-the-minute information
to your research, including news- paper articles, articles on the Internet, and a variety of non-print
sources.. You can also use the Internet to find newspaper articles. Most big-city newspapers have Web
sites that offer an indexed list of all the articles they have published for years. To get the major
newspaper Web sites, type in the name of the newspaper”. It also explains how to get the correct tittle
of the article from the web and also articles which are mainly for academic purposes.

This book explains the correct format of writing bibliography cards basing on the source of information
of the research being done. According to page 27, paragraph 2 of this book; it states that, “In the
center of the card, write the name of the author and the title of the source. For a book, include
the place of publication, the publisher, and the publication or copyright date. For a magazine,
include the name of the magazine, the date of the issue, and the page numbers of the article.
This shows the standard punctuation that your
Teacher probably wants you to use when you list your sources at the end of your paper”. It
shows how to write bibliography cards of books and magazine, it makes it better by illustrating
using written bibliography cards on page 27 of the book. This will be very important to students
taking writing skills in future as they will be equipped with the correct format of writing
bibliography cards of book and magazine.
Weakness

This book gives only the parts of research and how the research paper should be written but does not
give a combined research paper which has been done. The book does not merge all the points of the
research into a full and complete research hence making it difficult for readers to finalize their research
paper as they have no clue on how a full and complete draft look like when all the parts have been put
in order.

CONCLUSION
Generally, this book, How to write a great research paper, presents all the key points that a
scholar needs to beware of while planning to Carry out a research for class work and for general
knowledge acquisition. It also presents some of the common mistakes that scholars normally do
which often results in the student’s work being labelled as plagiarized. In addition, this book
provides remedies to help the students identify the pitfalls and avoid them. This book simplifies
the research work, making it easier for scholars to do their research assignments precisely.
RECOMMENDATION
I would recommend this book to students planning to take writing skills class in the near future
for the following reasons. First, the course Writing skills seeks to instill the technical know-how
of writing a research paper in students. This book provides a detailed explanation of all the
steps involved in when writing the research paper ( which are also taught in writing skills
course) therefore it can serve as one of the best reference for them during their academic
journey.
Secondly, this book also discuss the correct make up of sentence structures when it explains
reviewing and editing the draft for research paper, hence it would help the students to improve
in their grammar. “Make sure each of your sentences is complete, which means that each
sentence has a subject and a verb.” (pg.72). “A verb must always agree in number with its
subject. In other words, if a subject is singular, the verb must be singular; if the subject is plural,
the verb must be plural. If the subject of a sentence is the word each, the subject is singular
even though it may sound as if it were plural. This means the verb is singular too.” (pg. 72).
Thirdly, this book presents the concept of plagiarism and at the same time presents what the
students are supposed to do in order to prevent their work from being labelled as plagiarized.
This way, the book would help the students to avoid the mistakes that would lead to plagiarism.
Fourthly, this book would also help the students to know how to present their research paper
proper. The book winds up by stating the various formats in which a research paper can be
presented. It says that the student is at free-will to choose the most convenient format for him
or her. The formats include oral presentation, “You probably plan to turn in your work in
printed or handwritten form, but you also may be making an oral presentation. However you
plan to present your paper, do your best to show it in its best light.” (pg.83).
In conclusion, this book would also help the students to appreciate the role of doing a research
in knowledge acquisition. Research work is of great importance in the life of scholars since it is
one of the ways of gaining knowledge that all scholars seek to acquire.
I therefore highly recommend this book to students who are planning to enroll for the Writing
skills course in the near future
I recommend this book to students taking writing skills in future because this book explains many
sources of the research information and how to access them and get the information necessary for your
research process. According to page 25, passage one of this book, it states that, “In addition to books
and periodicals, other sources can add up-to-the-minute information to your research, including news-
paper articles, articles on the Internet, and a variety of non-print sources. We’ve discussed how to do an
Internet search and how to judge the reliability of a Web site. You can also use the Internet to find
newspaper articles. Most big-city newspapers have Web sites that offer an indexed list of all the articles
they have published for years. To get to major newspaper Web sites, type in the name of the
newspaper”. It also explains how to get the correct tittle of the article from the web and also articles
which are mainly for academic purposes. This will be beneficial to students who will be taking writing
skills in future as thy will have known the main sources of their research information. This will make
their work simple as they will only go to those specific sources and search the information they need on
the specific topic they are doing research on.