Throughout your high school career, you will be assigned MANY research projects. Some will result in formal, essay style research papers, others may be a little different. Either way, once you have the research PROCESS under your belt, completing any type of research project should be a breeze.
The purpose of this site is to provide you with the tools you will need to be successful in researching, compiling and analyzing your information in an organized and coherent manner.
Some of you may need to use this site in its entirety, carefully reading each section and following each directive (particularly those of you who are new to research). Explanations for each step in the research process are found here, as well as sections describing MLA documentation, parenthetical citations, works cited pages, research paper formatting, using transitions, and avoiding plagiarism.
Others among you (who are seasoned pros at writing research papers) may only need to use this site as a quick reference. Either way, please use the navigation bar to your left help you to find exactly what you need.
Good Luck!
Modern Language Association of America:
At Columbia High School, we follow research procedures as outlined by the Modern Language Association of America. The following is an excerpt from the foreword of the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (we use the 8th edition, but this excerpt still holds true):
“Why do I need to learn MLA style?” It is a question we sometimes hear at the Modern Language Association, and the answer is simple. Every time you write a research paper, you enter into a community of writers and scholars. The disciplines in this community all use conventions—think of the way chemists, mathematicians, and philosophers use symbols and special terms to transmit information. MLA style represents a consensus among teachers, scholars, and librarians in the fields of language and literature on the conventions for documenting research, and those conventions will help you organize your research paper coherently. By using MLA style, you will direct your readers to the sources your consulted in arriving at your findings, and you will enable them to build on your work” (xiii).
Much of the information on this site is derived from the 8th edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. You may find this book in any library in the country. If you would like to further your knowledge regarding ANY of the content of this site, you should refer to this book.
PLEASE NOTE: MLA is not the only style of research procedures out there! Other styles include APA, Chicago/Turabian, Harvard, CGOS, and CBE. In the future, some teachers or college professors may assign research projects requiring one of these research styles instead of MLA. However, once you are familiar with one style, learning another research style is not difficult to do.