Chapter+15

= "Writing a Research Paper" =

Chapter 15 focuses on, as its title suggests, writing a research paper. It carefully focuses its attention on areas of importance such as creating a bibliography, how to avoid plagiarizing and to "acknowledge your sources" (308), as well as tools for the actual research. Not only that, but it specifically tells how to cite each source, a student could possibly use, properly. Mainly this chapter is geared toward helping a student produce a quality research paper. This gears the student to consider the expectations of the teacher, without blatantly bringing the class or the teacher into the process.

Though the text never truly comes out and states the audience, it is very clear in the subtext of the chapter that the student reading this section is being geared to writing for the teacher. This echos David Bartholomae, who believed that students and teachers were from different communities and if a student wishes to do well, they need to write for a different, higher community, in their discourse. So naturally, the text prepares the student to think about things that the teacher will be looking for. For example, the chapter devotes an entire section to proper citation, the use of MLA, and helpful hints to avoid plagiarism. They do this, because teachers will look for proper citation and the proper use of quotations intermingled with the student's original thought. The student is writing based on the teacher's standard of a good research paper.

The text implies a process pedagogy in the sense that it maps out the process a student should take to write a research paper. Lad Tobin in his text "Process Pedagogy" refers to the process as: "(that is, to the methods that successful writers use to find and focus topics, to discover their meaning and voice, to productively give and take peer review); and to writing exercises" (Tobin 15).


 * Note:** This wikispace can be used as a guide to decide whether or not the text //A Short Guide to Writing About Literature// will be effective for your classroom probably at the college level. Throughout the review of this book, several composition theorists and their writings are referenced. Familiarity with these articles and theories will be helpful in accessing this guide and deciding whether or not to use this book as a source. For your convenience, on the Annotated Bibliography page of this wiki an annotated bibliography including extensive summaries of each work references can be found.