Methods of Research

Dept. of English
2nd Semester/ 3rd Year
2019-2020

Prepared by:
Assistant Professor
Dr. Ala’a Ismael Challob
 Introduction:
 Evaluating the usefulness of the collected sources:
 Taking Notes:
 The Traditional System:
 The Copying Machine System:
 Quotation note card:
 Paraphrase note card:
 The summary note card:
 Mixed quotation and paraphrase or summary note card:
 Evolving a working outline:
 When you prepared a list of sources (book and articles), the
next step includes two sub-steps;
 Evaluate your sources in term of their usefulness
 Take notes on them.
To evaluating the usefulness of the collected sources, you need to distinguish between
primary sources and secondary sources.
 Primary sources are the original sources that present basic facts on your topic. For
example books written by Vygotsky about social constructivism. One advantage of
primary sources is that you get the “unfiltered truth”. “Unfiltered truth” may represent
disadvantage point for primary sources as the research have to do all the spadework; i.e.,
the selecting, the filtering, the evaluating, the analyzing by himself.
 Secondary sources are those sources that presents secondhand facts on your topic. It
used primary sources or even secondary sources as its basis. Articles or books about
Vygotisky’s social constructivism.
 In scientific fields, modern sources are considered primary sources.
 The recommendation is to find as many primary sources as you can. You can also make
interviews with some experts near you. Then, look for secondary sources too. Each type
has its strengths and weaknesses and each type can help you evaluate the other type.
Details from primary sources can help you determine the value of secondary sources; the
secondary sources can help you understand the primary sources.
Relevant materials and reliable materials:
Relevant materials are those materials that have something
significant to do with your topic. To make sure the materials are
really relevant to your topic, you need to check the table of
content, index, the introductory material (the preface, author’s
introduction or foreword).They can tell you something about the
content covered in the book and the author’s intent.
Reliable materials are the type of materials that you trust their
authors and their content. Some printed materials do not present
something convincing to you. Accordingly, the tone of the book,
the personality the author projects raises questions.
After you find and evaluate your research sources, the
next step is to keep track of them. You can do this by
taking notes from them as human beings have too limited
memory. Taking notes is of two types; traditional system
by using note cards, and the copying machine system.
These two systems will be explained in the next slides.
It is devised before the invention of the copying machine.
You can use either 4*6 or 5*8 index cards as they are
easy to handle and to rearrange. You can easily match
their content with the sequence of the sections in the
research outline.
 The (subject) of card helps you keep your cards
organized when you are writing and arranging your
research sections and subsections.
 The (code) is a handy way to refer to your bibliography
card looking for possible sources.
 The (page number) helps you locate where in the
source you found this piece of information.
 You also need to keep track of the type of information
you got, is it quotation, paraphrasing, summary or a
mixture of these.
 Quotation is the exact words of a source. You have to enclose the
quotation by quotation marks.
 Paraphrase is a restatement, in your own words, of the words in a
source. Usually, a paraphrase follows the original organization sentence
by sentence. Most times, paraphrases are fairly short.
 Summary is something like a paraphrase: it restates the original in
your own words. But a summary also condense (summarizes), so it’s
shorter-sometimes considerably shorter- than the original.
 Mixed quotation and paraphrase/summary is a mixture of the words
from the source and in your own words. Sometimes, you want to
summarize or paraphrase a passage but some of the author's words are
so good you want to quote them. So you do both: paraphrase (or
summarize) and quote. (And you put quotation marks around any
quoted material).
 Suppose you are reading an interesting article that looks
useful for your paper. Should you stop and take notes, thus
interrupting your train of thought? If you do stop, and
particularly if you stop frequently, you may have trouble
staying with the main ideas of the article and get lost from
the constant stops and stars. If you don't stop to take notes,
however, you may permanently forget that small but
significant point you just read. If the last paragraph seems to
describe you, you might consider this method. When you
find an article that looks worthwhile, make a copy of it.
Then, as you read it, use a highlighting pen to mark anything
you want to be able to refer to later. Be sure when you copy
the article that you have complete bibliographic information
(just write it on the front page of the copy you make).
For a book, simply copy the pages you find useful and then
highlight the parts you wish to remember. Please do not ever
highlight the library copy (a practice which would be rude
and probably is illegal, or should be).

 Both the traditional system and the copying machine

system can work. The "system" that doesn't work is doing
some random reading combined with misplaced confidence
in human memory.
It contains the exact words enclosed by quotation marks.
As it is regular it should also include the subject at the
middle upper side of the card, page number at the end of
the quotation, and code which refers to the first two
letters of the author’s family name and a number
referring to the number of time you used this reference.
In this card, you need to restate the author’s words by other words from your
owns. While doing this , you follow the sentence-by-sentence organization of
the original and keep the same length. You paraphrase when you think that
the original writing is complex, ambiguous, or poorly worded. As such, you
paraphrase to explain, clarify and simplify the original ideas.
It is the similar to paraphrase note card as you also need to
rephrase the original words by using your own words and
expression. The difference is that in paraphrasing, you keep the
length of the original text whereas in summarizing you condense
the original text into shorter one.
 It is the case when you use quotation (exact author’s words-
even as little as a key word or phrase) while you are
summarizing or paraphrasing. In this case you need to enclose
the quoted words by quotation marks. Presenting the exact words
of an author without giving credit (intentionally or
unintentionally) is plagiarism.
 To keep track of your sources, find a source and then take
notes about it on note cards.
 Making these cards has several important benefits:
 They actively engage your mind with the material, and help
you understand the materials better than if you had only
glanced through it.
 They help you organize your process so you can easily tell
what you have found and what you have not found.
 You can rearrange the cards later to match your outline.
 You can even tape the notes onto the actual draft of your paper,
thus saving writing or typing time.
 To write a very creative and valuable research paper—a
papers that can be enjoyable to read, and to write, you need to
develop some sort of an outline.

 Writing an outline is just after collecting sources and writing

notes from them and before beginning writing the first draft of
your research paper.

 You can start by writing a tentative outline as soon as you can,

perhaps even before you get beyond the preliminary research
stage. That way, you will have some direction for your
research: an idea of what will be relevant for you and what
will not be.
 To write a comprehensive workable outline that cover all your research
aspects, keep a copy of your tentative outline with you, and whenever you
read something that could fit, actually jot it down on the outline.

 Remember that you can always change the outline. Perhaps you started
your research knowing little about your topic. Certainly you knew less or
you haven't really done much research. As you do your research, then, and
as you find out more about your topic, you need to allow your original
outline to change. That is why we called it a tentative outline.
Advantages of writing the research outline:
 It helps you keep track of what you've found and what you need.
 It helps you identify, organize and list the complete flow of your
paper along with all of your research information, and accordingly be
ready to start writing.
 A more substantial outline can save you a terrific amount of time and
energy.
Introduction
Major topic-1
Support topic-1
Specific support-1
Specific support-2
Major topic-2
Support topic-1
Specific support-1
Specific support-2
Conclusion
 Thank you

so much

for

your attention