METHODOLOGY

Weeks 4
Conducting Research
What is research? How to proceed when

carrying out reasearch? And how to produce

the research paper? These are the questions we

shall address in this part of the course.

1. Defining research
As The MLA Handbook gives to understand,

personal essays are different from research

papers.
( a personal paper is a paper in which you give

your own opinion, sometimes entirely

subjective, about a given topic; i.e, “the

empowerment of women in Africa”;

the misogynist would just question in a

personal paper without any thorough

argumentation the empowerment of women...

 in a research paper, however, he will

necessarily call forth relevant ideas from other

people to back up his opinion).

In short, the personal paper is quite different

from the research paper.

As Winkler et.al. observe, “writing a research

paper requires you to seek out information

about a subject, take a stand on it,

and back it up with the opinions, ideas, and

views of others”(3).
The result of this undertaking is: “a printed

paper [“le mémoire”, in this case] in which you

present your views and findings on the chosen

topic” (Winkler et. al. 3).

2. How to carry out research?
conducting research implies two steps: primary

research and secondary research.

 “Primary research is the study of a subject

through firsthand investigation, such as

analyzing a literary or historical text

[and] secondary research is the examination of

studies that other researchers have made of a

subject” (MLA 3).

A very important activity you need to do,

before starting secondary research is what is

called brainstorming.
In the brainstorming activity, you write down

all the ideas that come to mind about your

topic; all the ideas that could help carry out the

research.
You then arrange those ideas/hypotheses in

accordance with their relevance

 (for instance, gather together the ideas into

sets of ideas that would become chapters;

decide which set of ideas should be treated

first, set of ideas 3 before set of ideas 1, for

example, so there could be consistency in the

argumentation, etc.).
Then you write a temporary introduction
After that, look for sources (books, articles,

internet sources, etc.) dealing with each one of

the sets of ideas (after giving a title to each of

these sets of idea).

Example:

Sources for set of ideas 1

Sources for set of ideas 2

Sources for set of ideas 3

 Read books for set of ideas 1 taking down notes

(relevant information about the topic) on a

notepad

 Write a draft

 Improve the draft, proofread

 Read books for set of ideas 2

 Write a draft

 Improve the draft, proofread

 Read books for set of ideas 3

 Write a draft

 Improve the draft, proofread

 Week 4
3. Writing the paper
produce the first draft, piecing together the

three parts (60 pages at least)

You will need for that to ‘erase the stitches”

(you just make sure there are smooth

transitions between the different chapters)

Then you write the conclusion

And you review and adjust the introduction

Review, rework, refine all the draft using

proper and formal language and avoiding

cumbersome sentences (you here really cleanse

the draft to produce the final paper)

 Chapter introductions

NB: every chapter is to start with an

introduction (a chapter introduction that

outlines the content of the chapter) and

 Chapter conclusions

end with a conclusion (a chapter conclusion

that gives a summary of what has been said in

the chapter and provides a transition, a link, to

the next chapter).

 Before all these tasks, however, you need to

choose a topic and formulate a valid statement

of purpose.
IV. The Purpose Statement
 V. Referencing
 See Document MLA Style