Preface: The Aims of This Edition
Our Debts
I RESEARCH, RESEARCHERS, AND READERS
PROLOGUE: BECOMING A RESEARCHER
1 Thinking in Print: The Uses of Research, Public and Private
1.1 What Is Research?
1.2 Why Write It Up?
1.3 Why a Formal Report?
1.4 Writing Is Thinking
2 Connecting with Your Reader: (Re)Creating Yourself and
Your Readers
2.1 Creating Roles for Yourself and Your Readers
2.2 UnderstandingYour Role
2.3 Imagining Your Reader’s Role
Quick Tip: A Checklist for Understanding Your Readers
II ASKING QUESTIONS, FINDING ANSWERS
PROLOGUE: PLANNING YOUR PROJECT– AN OVERVIEW
Quick Tip: Creating a Writing Group
3 From Topics to Questions
3.1 From an Interest to a Topic
3.2 From a Broad Topic to a Focused One
3.3 From a Focused Topic to Questions
3.4 From a Question to Its Significance
Quick Tip: Finding Topics
4 From Questions to a Problem
4.1 Distinguishing Practical and Research Problems
4.2 Understanding the Common Structure of Problems
4.3 Finding a Good Research Problem
4.4 Learning to Work with Problems
Quick Tip: Disagreeing with Your Sources
5 From Problems to Sources
5.1 Knowing How to Use Three Kinds of Sources
5.2 Locating Sources through a Library
5.3 Locating Sources on the Internet
5.4 Evaluting Sources for Relevance and Reliability
5.5 Following Bibliographic Trails
5.6 Looking beyond Predictable Sources
5.7 Using People as Primary Sources
Quick Tip: The Ethics of Using People as Sources of Data
6 Engaging Sources
6.1 Knowing What Kind of Evidence to Look For
6.2 Read Complete Bibliographical Data
6.3 Engaging Sources Actively
6.4 Using Secondary Sources to Find a Problem
6.5 Using Secondary Sources to Plan Your Argument
Quick Tip: Manage Moments of Normal Anxiety
III MAKING A CLAIM AND SUPPORTING IT
PROLOGUE: ASSEMBLING A REASEARCH ARGUMENT
7 Making Good Arguments: An Overview
7.1 Argument as a Conversation with Readers
7.2 Supporting Your Claim
7.3 Acknowledging and Responding to Anticipated Questions and Objections
7.4 Warranting the Relevance of Your Reasons
7.5 Building a Complex Argument Out of Simple Ones
7.6 Creating an Ethos by Thickening Your Argument
Quick Tip: A Common Mistake – Falling Back on What You Know
8 Claims
8.1 Determining the Kind of Claim You Should Make
8.2 Evaluating Your Claim
Quick Tip: Qualifying Claims to Enhance Your Credibility
9 Reasons and Evidence
9.1 Using Reasons to Plan Your Argument
9.2 Distinguishing Evidence from Reasons
9.3 Distinguishing Evidence from Reports of It
9.4 Evaluating Evidence
10 Acknowledgments and Responses
10.1 Questioning Your Argument as Your Readers Will
10.2 Imagining Alternatives to Your Argument
10.3 Deciding What to Acknowledge
10.4 Framing Your Responses as Subordinate Arguments
10.5 The Vocabulary of Acknowledgment and Response
Quick Tip: Three Predicatble Disagreements
11 Warrants
11.1 Warrants in Everyday Reasoning
11.2 Warrants in Academic Arguments
11.3 Understanding the Logic of Warrants
11.4 Testing Whether a Warrant Is Reliable
11.5 Knowing When to State a Warrant
11.6 Challenging Others' Warrants
Quick Tip: Two Kinds of Arguments
IV PLANNING, DRAFTING, AND REVISING
PROLOGUE: PLANNING AGAIN
Quick Tip: Outlining and Storyboarding
12 Planning
12.1 Avoid Three Common but Flawed Plans
12.2 Planning Your Report
13 Drafting Your Report
13.1 Draft in a Way That Feels Comfortable
13.2 Use Key Words to Keep Yourself on Track
13.3 Quote, Paraphrase, and Summarize Appropriately
13.4 Integrating Direct Quotations into Your Text
13.5 Show Readers How Evidence Is Relevant
13.6 Guard against Inadvertent Plaigarism
13.7 The Social Importance of Citing Sources
13.8 Four Common Citation Styles
13.9 Work through Procrastination and Writer's Block
Quick Tip: Indicating Citations in Your Text
14 Revising Your Organization and Argument
14.1 Thinking Like a Reader
14.2 Revising the Frame of Your Report
14.3 Revising Your Argument
14.4 Revising the Organization of Your Report
14.5 Check Your Paragraphs
14.6 Let Your Draft Cool, Then Paraphrase It
Quick Tip: Abstracts
15 Communicating Evidence Visually
15.1 Choosing Visual or Verbal Representations
15.2 Choosing the Most Effective Graphic
15.3 Designing Tables, Charts, and Graphs
15.4 Specific Guidlines for Tables, Bar Charts, and Line Graphs
15.5 Communicating Data Ethically
16 Introductions and Conclusions
16.1 The Common Structure of Introductions
16.2 Step 1: Establish Common Ground
16.3 Step 2: State Your Problem
16.4 Step 3: State Your Response
16.5 Setting the Right Place for Your Introduction
16.6 Writing Your Conclusion
16.7 Finding Your First Few Words
16.8 Finding Your Last Few Words
Quick Tip: Titles
17 Revising Style: Telling Your Story Clearly
17.1 Judging Style
17.2 The First Two Principles of Clear Writing
17.3 A Third Principle: Old before New
17.4 Choosing between Active and Passive
17.5 A Final Principle: Complexity Last
17.6 Spit and Polish
Quick Tip: The Quickest Revision Strategy
V SOME LAST CONSIDERATIONS
The Ethics of Research
A Postscript for Teachers
Appendix: Bibliographical Resources
General Sources
Index