Research Guides: ENG106 Coffey: Understanding your assignment

What you need to do & why

Project #1: You need to find at least 1 and ideally 2 peer-reviewed articles to support your opinion about the poem you have chosen to write your essay about. In academic writing, your opinion is expressed in a thesis. Your paper may start with a thesis — the idea you shared in your initial post — but your research process probably won't. It's normal to start research with only a vague idea of your thesis, and the sources you find will help you specify what your position actually is. You may find a source or sources that support something you have already discovered about the poem, a source or sources that offer something additional to what you have already discovered on your own, or possibly a source that contradicts your initial ideas. You can also use sources that talk generally about the form of the poem you're focusing on, if applicable.

Project #2: For the traditional academic essay option, you need to find at least 2 peer-reviewed articles to support your opinion/thesis about the poem(s) you have chosen to write about.

This page:

presents an overview on the research process from thesis to citations. Take 4 minutes to understand the process you're about to embark upon so you can save time and get a better grade.
explains what peer-reviewed means and how it compares to the majority of information we deal with on a daily basis. Take 5 minutes to level up into the world of academic information.

The research process

Writing a research paper has many steps and can be a confusing process. Here is how a typical research process may go.

The Research Process from ECU Joyner on Youtube.

Scholarly and popular sources

Tutorial: What Does it Mean to be a Scholarly Source? from umnLibraries on Youtube.

Check your understanding:

What part of a scholarly article summarizes the main points?
Are newspapers scholarly or popular? Why?
What is it called when an article is reviewed by experts?
What clues in scholarly articles indicate that the author is an expert?
What do the footnotes and bibliography allow readers to do?
What are some ways you can visually identify a popular source?

What does peer-reviewed mean?

What does peer reviewed mean?

Peer-reviewed articles are published with the intent of sharing new research and information from specialized fields with researchers, professionals, and students. The process of peer review helps to ensure that each published article is unique, accurate, credible, and objective. Peer-reviewed articles can be published in print journals, online journals, and academic and research organizations’ websites.

Characteristics of a Peer-Reviewed Article

Information is organized into sections with headings: Abstract, introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, and references.
Usually long and in-depth; 10-20 pages is normal.
Includes graphs or tables but few, if any, images or advertisements.
Includes specialized or field-specific language.
Information is presented objectively, without bias.
Includes reference lists and in-text citations.
Published quarterly or semi-annually.

Purpose

Inform other scholars and students in higher education of new research and findings.

Authorship

Experts in their fields: researchers conducting primary research, practitioners, professors and scholars. Credentials are either provided in the article or easy to access.
Often an organization will publish a journal (e.g., the American Medical Association publishes JAMA and the Archives of Internal Medicine.