Searching as Strategic Exploration

Starting Your Research Paper

Purpose

Demonstrate knowledge of individual and collaborative writing processes.
Develop ideas with appropriate support and attribution.
Write in style appropriate to the audience and purpose.
Read, reﬂect, and respond critically to a variety of texts.
Use Edited American English in academic essays.

Skills: The purpose of this assignment is to help you practice the essential skills that are vital to your success in this course and in professional life beyond school:

Find and locate main ideas, concepts, and patterns
Analyze and compare and contrast ideas, concepts, or patterns
Articulate and evaluate the ideas
Use sources to support your points as well as collaborate and join the conversation
Appropriately attribute sources to avoid plagiarism

Knowledge: This assignment will also help you become familiar with the following relevant content knowledge in this discipline:

Including support and attribution for quotes or paraphrases used in your writing (SLO 2)
Interpreting, identifying, and incorporating audience and purpose in your writing (SLO 3)
Incorporating elements of style with compare and contrast, description, persuasion, etc. in your writing (SLO 1)
Incorporating analysis and critical thinking by discussing sources in your writing (SLO 4)
Recognizing and correcting grammar and punctuation errors through revision strategies (SLO 5)

Task

Choose a controversial topic within your profession or industry that you would like to investigate further.

○ For helpful topics visit ProCon.org or Allsides.com

A few tips:

You will need to write at least 1500 words.
See Ch. 4 in Successful College Composition for writing a research paper
You may also use Scribber for additional help with MLA and writing a research paper
Visit the SAC Writing Center to get help with your writing: https://www.alamo.edu/sac/wctr/

Criteria for Success

This paper should be a minimum of 1500 words.
You should have a thesis that identiﬁes the issue and the purpose of your paper.
After your introduction, make sure your paragraphs include topic sentences, evidence, explanations, and synthesis of ideas.
You should include six outside sources, which include at least three sources from the library database. The other three should be reputable sources from credible sites.
Make sure to include MLA citations for your quotes/paraphrases from any copied source and include your Works Cited.
Make sure you visit the Writing Center for help!!!

Opposing Viewpoints In Context
Covers controversial topics in pro and con essays published in the following series: Opposing Viewpoints, Information Plus, At Issue, Contemporary Issues Companion, Current Controversies, Opposing Viewpoints Digests, and Teen Decisions. Study tools and guidelines included.
General OneFile
One-stop source for news and periodical articles. Includes the databases in General Reference Gold.
Access World News Research Collection | NewsBank | Includes access to San Antonio Express-News
Includes access to San Antonio Express-News.
International, national, regional, state and local news content from all 50 U.S. states as well as more than 2,700 international news sources from 139 countries. News content may be included in its original published language or translated into English.
Discovery: search the catalog and more
Your all-in-one search tool to find books, media, articles, and more.
U.S. History In Context

Historical (primary source) documents, reference articles, and journals covering periods in U.S. history from precolonial times to the present. Includes citations for history journals from the Arts and Humanities.
Credo Reference
Credo Reference contains hundreds of specially curated encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference works with the ability to search across resources. Mind Map visually shows relationships between topics.
Films on Demand: Master Academic Collection
Large collection of streaming educational films with content in: business, economics, medicine, humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. New programs added monthly. Note: A high speed Internet connection is required.
Want to share a URL or EMBED video code? See our how-to guide.
CQ Researcher
Explores in-depth a single "hot" issue in the news each week. Topics range from social and teen issues to environment, health, education and science and technology. Every report is written by an experienced journalist and features comments from experts, lawmakers and citizens on all sides of every issue.

A-Z list of databases

eBook Reference Library

Full text ebook editions of reference works published by Gale Research, Charles Scribner's Sons, MacMillan Reference, and their divisions.