How to Write an Essay – Step 1: Research
How to Write an Essay. Research, Analysis, Thesis, Outline
Step 1: Essay Research
Step 2: Essay Analysis
Step 3: Brainstorming
Step 4: Essay Thesis
Step 5: Essay Outline
Step 6: Essay Introduction
Step 7: Essay Paragraphs
Step 8: Essay Conclusion
Step 9: MLA Style in Essay Writing
Step: 10: Language
Step 10: Essay Language (b)
Step 1: Thorough Research
Suppose you have been given a topic, or have restricted it enough, hence, your initial job is to extensively investigate the topic given, as you will not be able to understand how to write on a topic about which you have no clue at all. Therefore, if you want to make your essay worth reading you will have to go and research and apprehend valuable information by doing a lot of reading work with patience.
Read light sources, then thorough
When you execute the information research work, you gradually advance towards accurate information collection to be sure that you are guided towards the right path. To start your search, you can go on the net and do some research about the topic given so that you have some knowledge about the essential points; you can further do advance research to get a complete and accurate search on he Academic Database; Ultimately, you can investigate the dimension of the topic issue by doing some research reading in the library. You should keep in mind that in spite of first getting your information on the internet, your task is not completed just there. If you only use the internet search, it is said to be lacking important information and hence you are deprived of using a superior quality of knowledge from the academic books available in the library.
Write down quotations
While you read your essay topic, write down the exciting quotations that you come across. You should also make it a point to note down the correct source and copy exactly as the quotation appears meticulously. The quotation should be handwritten to be certain that you do not use it excessively hence will have a limited use of it and that’s how it should be used. If you are just going on the net to inspect for pleasure and collect information and simply copy paste the URLs from different browsing source it into the Word file, then examine those and pick the important ones.
By doing this sort of short cuts, you are liable to put marks to indicate exciting portions. Use the margin area to write queries or imaginations that comes to the mind. When using a library book and find something there. Then do not spoil the book by writing on it, use the post-it notes. Which ever source you are using, make it a point to write critical analysis of the test that you read. And if you find a source online for reading, try to download that material and then use Word’s reviewing toolbar for additional outline of the text or use the highlighter tool to emphasize the important portion of the test.
Take a little from a lot
To be able to get enough resources for your topic, you will have to do a lot of reading work. While you are incorporating your research, you should take a little from a lot, meaning to refer precisely from a wide range of different sources. You can consider this the best guidance given. If too much of quotations is taken from just one source, no matter how accurate that is, it will cause your essay to be unnatural or an imitation of somebody else’s work. On the other hand if you have used very little sources, it will implicate that you do not have much experience in writing an essay. But if your essay contains a good number of small quotations from many sources, you may be considered as a person who has read well, with sufficient knowledge, and worth being trusted in as you advance in writing your essay topic.
Step 1a: Researching On The Internet
The internet should not be the one and only source to gain information; it would still seem to deride the use the many sources available on the net for information. One should make use of the internet to gain knowledge to be well equipped with the information required for your essay topic which should be followed before you can discover the academic text. Hence when you are browsing the net, keep in mind the following principles:
Use a variety of search engines
There are about 550 billion web pages on the internet, of which Google is known to be the most potent influence of a form of searching source that can only access about 5 million pages out of the 550 million pages. Which is lesser than one percent! While browsing the internet, you should have access to other search options too. Most of the engines of search that shows above are the information’s taken from The Academic Search Engines from (Paula Dragutsky’s Search) that specifies to provide data required for institutions at college level, whereas Popular Engine Search assist to find data on a few academic topics. You can avail a number of search engines for any of your essay topic. And when you can research farther than just on the Google site, you will learn that there are no boundaries to the use of the internet. If you take for example the search site of www.wisenut.com its outcome will be distinct from www.turbo.com that too shows a different response when you use www.google.com and www.overture.com. Check it out.
Look at the Site’s Quality
After you have reverted from all the search sites, you will presumably draw out a number of sites to search from, and just as expected from a fisherman, your task too will be the same as to arrange and pick from the discarded rubbish dump. The extent of expertise and the art of composing and exhibiting the sites will reflect what your composition is worth. The sites with black backgrounds are said to be the entertainment sites, whereas the ones with a while background are considered as informative sites. The sites that are decorative and colorful backgrounds are those which are produced by the newcomer or the neophyte schemers. Try avoiding the pages of bogs (online journals). Also do not use the ‘free-essay’ pages. Stay away from pages that consist of many programs suddenly appearing on the screen. Also be attentive to the domain types. You must be aware that:
.com = commercial
.org = organization
.gov = government
.edu = education
.net = network
There is evidence that the domain type practicably shows prejudice regarding any information. It is understood that an.org site on the animal rights issue will be distorted to another side of the topic. Even if these sites want to sell their stuff as many of the ‘sponsored listings’ which shows at the top with search engines about their hit list, simply ignore them.
Mix up your search words
To avoid too many hits, keep inserting extra keywords in the search box. But if you are not getting sufficient hits, then enter lesser keywords in the search box. Make attempts to put the same ideas into the input in various ways using different words and phrases. An opening to a keyword search that proposes a tool which allows you to know the search strings that are generally applied for ideas that you are searching for. There are Search engines that teaches you how to use the search strings, with explanations on how to add+ and – and quotation marks to acquire a meticulous or standard achievements.
For obtaining a detailed search, there are many search engines that consist of advanced tabs that assist you to do so. The Google, for instance does have an advanced search facility which also adds enormously to return accurately, although not many use this option. Eventually, you should remember that there are some search engines that have particular functions for specific types of topics; hence, if you do not succeed in one search engine you can always use another.
Don’t Limit Yourself to the Internet
Though it is a pleasure to use the internet and search for information and in the process come across new sites that contain content you need for your topic, make sure that you are not restricted to the internet only, through which many use to get their information publically known which may include imperfect information. Researches taken from “Steve and Kim’s homepage,” “Matt’s Econ Blog,” and “teenstuffonline,” for your essays, then your work will not be as good and interesting as it would be with the academic journals, because these journals superior quality of research with an accurate manner to deal with the topics given and this is an establishment that can be relied upon. (They’ll still remain there in10 years), and will become stronger and motivational conclusively. Eddy Smith’s “Summer Vacation to the Middle East” should not be replaced by Edward Said’s Orientalism.
Step 1c: Researching In The Library
There is widespread rumor about the false belief amongst most students is that the library consists of old and out-of-date, obsolete books, that do not belong to this century and hence those books are found to be outdated to help in the present topics under consideration. Any attempts to recover them would prove futile.
Auspiciously, all the libraries possess acquisitions departments that have experts belonging to various fields of scholarship who are continuously conducted to update books related to the existing times in every field. Because of this, libraries contain books on all topics for an estimated time in the last ten years or more. So if you have to write about something that is completely new. Then there likely is a possibility that a book has been written about it and you will probably find it in your library.
Retrieving books saves energy
Many students falsely believe that if they had to see a book that was registered on the electronic catalog, they would consider this to be too much of an inconvenience to go to the library. Climb the stairs or use the lifts, search through piles and passages, or to study all the Library of Congress, or call their numbers and stuff like these seem to be a major tedious task.
It is a reality that there is an enormous amount of vigorous effort required (i.e. walking) to locate books, which comparatively requires more effort than clicking a mouse, when the book is found it needs less exertion to go through the information than it would to struggle with the non computer methods or sifting, while you can get great amounts of information that you need on the internet. Comparatively, books seem to be kept in an organized manner, with principle improvements made that have great number of research information that are written by scholars that supply remarkable support data for your essay.
The internet has many sites ranging from porno to CIA accounts, and all the information is provided in a haphazard manner as if paint thrown on a wall. You will to arrange your required account info like a homeless person searching for food in a garbage can. Just consider how good you will feel reading a chapter from a book while lying down in preference to using the internet.
Learn to skim books
Since the books are regarded as a an accurate and lengthy article which (may have taken the author many years to write, as contravened to an online article, that may have taken an hour for the writer to write) you need to learn to skim. Go through the list of divisions and skim through them and check if there is any chapter that is connected to your topic. Read through the pages of introduction and the first pages of many chapters and see if there is any data that you need.
Because you would still need to quote to support your essay, you will go through many sources to gain what you need, but do not give too much of your time just buried into the same book. You pick little information from various books of different authors. It would be better to photocopy what are important pages instead of going through many books.
Library as sanctuary
With spending a lot of time in the library doing research on books, you will soon realize that a library can be a sacred place to be in. You will not be disturbed by the blatant sounds of the traffic on the roads because it is barred by the thousands of books that contain so much perception of obsolete topics related to the different times or ages. A library can be a place where you can study, or it could be a place of run away from friends or families or your duties, and is a shelter where you can find peace and calm hence acting as your sacred place. An institution that has a library is the centre of any academic institution, and the more you get time to spend there, the more you will notice how sacred it seems. A university from New York decided to use the library as his everlasting sleeping place. (only showing outwardly that it was for financial reasons).
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