1. Tips for a successful plan
Research Strategy
Tips for a successful plan

2. Planning Your Work Research writing is a process
Understand the situation of your subject, purpose, and audience.
Gather ideas and information about the subject.
Focus and arrange ideas.
Draft a paper.
Revise and edit your paper.

3. Keeping a Research Journal
This is a place to keep your ideas about:
Sources you want to consult
Leads you want to pursue
Any difficulties you encounter
This is NOT where you should keep notes on what your sources actually say.

4. Finding a Researchable Subject
Seek a subject that interests you.
Are there ample sources of information available?
Does the subject encourage research in the kinds of sources required?
Will the subject lead you to an objective assessment of the sources and to a defensible conclusion?
Does the subject suit the length of the paper and the time given?

5. Asking a Research Question
Asking a questions can give focus to your research.
Ask narrow questions
How does Human activity effect the environment? is very broad.
How can buying environmentally friendly products help the environment?
How, if at all, should carbon emissions be taxed?
Both of these questions are narrow AND requires more than a simple yes or no answer.

6. Setting Goals for Sources
Your Own Knowledge- Through brainstorming you will explore your own thoughts.
Kinds of Sources- You will rely on a variety of sources for your research.
Library and Internet sources- Library sources are easy to retrieve and are generally reliable. Internet sources can be valuable if used well.
Primary and Secondary sources- Primary sources are firsthand accounts like works of literature, letters, speeches, experiments, or observations. Secondary sources report and analyze primary sources. EX: a reporter’s summary of an issue, a historian’s account of a battle, or a critic’s reading of a poem.

7. Kinds of Sources, Con’t
Scholarly and Popular sources- Scholarly sources are peer reviewed. You are expected to emphasis scholarly sources in your work. Popular sources may also be used.
Scholarly VS. Popular—How to tell the difference:
1. Check the title- is it technical? Does it use general vocab?
2. Check the publisher- Is it a publisher of scholarly journals like Harvard University Press? Or a popular magazine like Consumer Reports?
3. Check the length- Popular articles tend to be much shorter.
4. Check the author- Is she/he an expert?

8. Keeping an Annotated Bibliography
An Annotated Bibliography helps you track your sources.
Source information- Each entry on the bibliography is headed with the citation of the source. This will be helpful later, when you need to develop a works cited page.
Annotations- This is what makes this bibliography more than a list—it becomes a resource for assessing sources. You should record:
What you know about the content of the source
How the source may be helpful in your research