Need some advice on a paper

[Mr. Green Eyes]

I'm about to start a SRP, which is a Senior Research Paper, that's 12 pages. Since, I'm hearing-impaired, I decided to do mine on the deaf and hearing-impaired communties and how they view the world. The thing is, I only have two months or so to do this, and I'm wondering where should I start? Do any of you guys have any advice for me? Thanks.

 

[Liesje]

Generally, a research paper is required to have a thesis. A thesis is not just a topic of choice, but it has to contain some sort of claim or argument that you're going to backup with your research. Brainstorm some questions you have that you'd be interested in researching and then forming into a thesis.

Usually, I try to narrow down the topic into a few different statements/arguments I could focus on, do some research, and then see what direction it's heading. Usually, I don't finalize the actual thesis statement until my paper is almost finished, because the thesis has to match the entire paper.

 

[Mr. Green Eyes]

Thanks! But the thing that I'm most worried about, at the moment, is the research. Where should I start with that? I know that the web has a lot, but I want to go beyond the web. Not abandon the web totally, but just some of the web, some book info, and some real life info. Plus, a thing that I'm not that good at is doing it all in a timely matter, so to speak.

 

[VertigoGal]

I agree with Lies, I think you should at least brainstorm some possible areas of interest within that topic, so you know where to start with research a bit more. Then you can consider which topics have the most information available to form a solid paper, and you can adapt a thesis to fit the direction your paper goes.

If you're having trouble coming up with questions/areas to begin research on, try thinking about some of your own experiences or do a very broad internet search such as "challenges facing the hearing impaired" etc- anything broad just so you can see what info is out there.

good luck.

 

[redhotswami]

After you come up with your research question/argument, your best bet would be the library (stay away from the web!) Ask your librarian to help you out, but you might wanna try looking up journal articles. Your librarian will help point you in the direction of scholarly journal databases. From the articles you can do a review of the literature to support your claim.

Good luck!

 

[Tarvark]

I think your too wide.

Best always to start off with a narrow narrow approach.

Maybe start off with something like deaf man and woman in the military.

Find a book on that. Read what you can.

Look at the bibliography for that book.

Scan some titles.

Decide that the military might be too restricting. Add deaf culutre in business.

Find some books. Read. Bibliography.

Too small again....

Build up not down. That way your research wont be too broad.

Bibliographies found in the back of creditable books are key. Read a few of them and pin point the major authors in the field.

Lexus Nexus them and take an eye towards abstracts.

 

[Techie2000]

Thanks! But the thing that I'm most worried about, at the moment, is the research. Where should I start with that? I know that the web has a lot, but I want to go beyond the web. Not abandon the web totally, but just some of the web, some book info, and some real life info. Plus, a thing that I'm not that good at is doing it all in a timely matter, so to speak.

As far as research goes, first thing is first, most university and college libraries have an excellent amount of resources for doing research, and people that are more than willing to help you with research techniques, after all that's what a lot of college students spend their time doing. So there are a lot of other people in the same boat as you, and people that help those people all the time. They will probably direct you to what you need, and show you how to access all those expensive research databases that your tuition dollars have been paying for, but you haven't touched yet. I also imagine that you will be directed to resources within the deaf community itself.

 

[Liesje]

As far as research, when I was in school we kept web use very limited. Actually, we were not allowed to cite ANY .com source. IF we thought we had a web source that was good enough, it had to be .gov, .edu, or .org.

In college, I did most of my research online, but not using online sources. Our library gave us access to hundreds of databases that had records for thousands of various scholarly journals and academic publications. Typically, I limited search criteria to peer-reviewed articles, since they are generally of better academic quality.

The electronic databases tell you where to find the source on paper, then you can find it in a library or have a library get if for you from somewhere else.

If you're not sure where to start, you should brainstorm questions about your topic and then research possible answers. If you just pick a broad topic, leave it open-ended, and start researching you'll get frustrated very fast.