“If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.”—Wilson MiznerThis quote makes me laugh, because it’s so true. Beth calls me the Research Guru. I love research—it’s a blind date with knowledge and triggers writing ideas.
Have you ever wondered how to avoid plagiarism, evaluate the credibility of your sources, interpret scholarly, expert or secondary sources that disagree with each other, or how to organize and store your research?
In the upcoming months, I will blog about what I’ve learned along the Research Writing Road. Topics will include:
1. I’m a Research Beginner: How Do I Start?
2. Important Tips to Remember Before Beginning My Research
3. Avoiding Plagiarism and Citing Sources
4. Six Common Style Guides
5. Citing Online Sources
6. Citing Discipline-Specific Styles
7. How to Step Out of My Cultural Perspective to Grasp Another Cultural Mindset
8. How Do I Evaluate the Value of News Reports Regarding Current Events
9. Questions to Test Your Sources’ Credibility
10. Questions to Test Your Sources’ Accuracy
11. Questions to Test Your Sources’ ‘Truthiness’ (I love Stephen Colbert’s humor!)
12. How Do I Locate an Original Source?
13. What Can I Do If I Can’t Find the Original Source?
14. How Do I Evaluate Original, Scholarly Sources that Disagree with Each Other?
15. Where Can I Find Hard-To-Find or Out-Of-Print Books?
16. Why Date My Research?
17. How Do I Store Research on My Computer?
18. Finding Common and Out-Of-The-Box Resources
19. Online Research Sources by Topic
20. Online Research Sources Organized by the Inductive Question Method
If you have any research tips, please share them with us.
2 comments:
I'm laughing at the quote too!! I'm reading a book on writing and for three pages the author quotes one author after another - not one original thought in the whole three pages!!! HAHAHA! I guess it's a way to fill the page...?
Can I relate to the book you are reading! I was researching books for a manuscript proposal. I particularly looked forward to reading a book written by a well-known author. Was I ever surprised! It seemed to be mostly quotes with a bit of original commentary interspersed in between. I confess...I was disappointed. Even though, the quotes were excellent, I would have preferred to hear more of the author's thoughts on the topic. I have to admit, this author certainly had a fabulous quote researcher.
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