English

First Lecture
Planning your research
 Why do researchers write a
research?
Researchers do a research whenever they
want to gather information to answer a
question that solves a problem.

So, if you are starting from scratch, your first

task is to find a research question worth
investigating that will lead to a research
problem worth solving.
There are four steps, you begin
with, to write a research.
1- Find a topic specific enough to let you
master reasonable amount of information
on it : not, for example, the history of
scientific writing (too general) but essays
in the proceedings of the royal society
( 1675-1750) as precursors to the modern
scientific article.
2- Question that topic until you find
questions catch your interest.

For example, How did royal society authors

demonstrate that their evidence was real?
 3- Determine the kinds of evidence
your readers will expect you to offer in
support of your answer.

-Will they accept reports of facts from

secondary sources, or will they expect you to
consult primary sources?

-Will they expect quantitative data,

quotations from authorities or firsthand
observation?
 4- Determine whether you can find this
evidence.
- There is no point researching a topic unless you
have good chance of finding the right kind of
evidence.

- Once you think you have enough data to support

at least plausible answer to your question, you will
be ready to assemble an argument that makes
your case, then to plan, draft, and revise it.
-Doing research is not strolling along an easy,
well-marked path to a familiar destination.

- It’s more like zigzagging up and down a

rocky hill through overgrown woods,
sometimes in a fog, searching for
something you won’t recognize until you
see it.

-So, you may not march through the previous

steps in the neat order.
- You will think of tentative answer to
your research question before you have
all the evidence you need to support it.

- And when you think you have an

argument worth making, you may
discover that you need more and
maybe different evidence from new
sources.
- You may even modify your topic.
 Resolve to do lots of writing along
the way. Much of it will be routine note-
taking, but you should also write
reflectively to understand:
- Make outlines;
- Explain why you disagree with a
source;
- Draw diagrams to connect separate
facts;
- Summarize sources;
- And record even random thoughts.
 You might not include much of this
writing-to-discover-and-understand in your
final draft.

- But when you write as you go, every

day, you encourage your own best critical
thinking, understand your sources better,
and, when the time comes, draft more
productively.
 Vocabulary:
-worth: deserve
- investigating: examining
- Determine: decide
- Evidence: proof
- Quotations: citations ( from a text)
- Plausible: reasonable
- Assemble: construct or build
- Argument: explanation
- Case: topic
- March: walk
- Tentative: unconfirmed
- Strolling: walking
- Destination: end
- Fog: thick cloud
- Predictable: expected
- Detours: indirect routes or deviations.
- Avoid: keep away from.
- Resolve: decide or determine
- Routine: regular
- Outlines: general plans
- Disparate: different
- Journal: review
- Hunches: feeling that something is true
even though you do not have evidence to
prove it.
- Productively: effectively
- Write an essay explaining- in your
own language- today’s lecture.

- The essay should include: an

introduction, a body and a
conclusion. It should also have a
title.