Author Archives: Carla

Well I have learned several things that I knew in brief, but in the class it was well explained. Like when using the databases we have to use specific keywords in order to have good results. One thing that I wasn’t sure about was the use of the search engines, when I wanted information I would only look in databases but, now I can look at any website and know if that information is relevant or not. As we all know when looking for information, we have a certain criteria that has to be made before choosing an article that can relate to any topic we are working on. I see myself looking back at Badke’s book because it contains a lot useful information when writing a research paper. It has several key points that can help anyone when trying to write a paper. I would recommend the book to anyone and I know that everyone will use it at least one time in their life. At some point we will look back and say that we learned so many things in this class that every student should take it and as might well enjoy it with the useful information it contains and gives to students.

Now that we are going to write our first draft of the research paper, we have to put all our ideas together to make it a good paper and very informative. Many students have different strategies into starting their first draft or sometimes they skip several steps into writing a paper and just turn in the final paper. The strategies I will use in my first draft are to focus on my main points that I want to address the audience to. By narrowing each concept of the topic to main key points and giving details in depth it will explain the reasons of the topic and why is it such a concern. I have done several research papers for my other classes and I somewhat use the same strategies I will use now, but since not all research papers fall on the same concept we have to change some of the strategies we had used before and find new ones. Well, some of my concerns are if all my sources good for the start of my first draft or do I have to search for new ones and also if the sources are credible and connect to my research topic. There are more strategies we can use which are to make sure we cite the sources correctly, use information that is reliable to the topic and just try to connect each point in the paper to the topic and everything will be fine

Choosing a research topic is to thoroughly think about it so much, because we have to know what exactly we are looking for. Like for me I chose Plagiarism but the topic is so broad, I have to narrow it down and choose a specific topic that deals with plagiarism and the consequences somewhat. But yet, I’m still undecided on what to specify my topic on. I know that I want to describe a case in where someone was involved in being guilty of plagiarizing someone’s work. But, also the consequences and I know that in every situation the policies are not the same. So this is what it keeps me from looking further because I’m stuck. I have searched in many databases from the library webpage and I find much information on plagiarism in different parts. that deals with other subtopics like medicine, school and even authors of several books. I was thinking on starting from the main point: What is Plagiarism? Defining Plagiarism? or How can people even students can prevent it? But, yet I’m stuck again because it’s broad and I can find a lot of information but I have to choose carefully the info I want to use in my paper. My question would be how I can narrow plagiarism into a question that can make sense and will I be able to find info and know that the reader will catch my main point about the topic.