Chapter 2: Researching With Integrity
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
- When you research, you’ll need to build on the ideas of others. Citation is the way to give credit to the people whose ideas influenced you.
- An effective research paper focuses on the writer’s ideas. The introduction and conclusion present and revisit the writer’s thesis. The body of the paper develops the thesis and related points with information from research.
- Ideas and information taken from outside sources must be cited in the body of the paper and in the references section.
- Material taken from sources should be used to develop the writer’s ideas. Summarizing and paraphrasing are usually most effective for this purpose.
- A paraphrase restates ideas from a source using the writer’s own words and sentence structures.
- Plagiarism has serious academic and professional consequences. To avoid accidental plagiarism, keep research materials organized, understand guidelines for fair dealing and appropriate citation of sources, and review the paper to make sure these guidelines are followed.
