Assignment Organizer

Just follow these steps to submitting your best work!

Make sure you understand the assignment!

• • • • Review the rubric, if provided, and clarify any issues with your professor before you get started.

Select a topic. 

• • • • This may require a preliminary investigation of the general subject area, using sources with a broader perspective such as books and the Web.

Begin to develop your research question.

• • • • If required by the assignment, develop a thesis* about some aspect of the topic. 

*Thesis - a statement about a topic that you intend to prove by providing evidence to support it.

• Be aware that you may continue to refine your research question after you begin examining the available literature.

Find evidence and sources, saving your references in a systematic way. 

• • • • Remember that journal articles tend to provide specific information on a narrow topic area, while books tend to provide a broader perspective!

      • If you’re asked to use scholarly sources, look for content written by experts for a knowledgeable audience using discipline-specific language. These resources will generally contain citations and references to support the authors’ arguments.

      • Use some of our tools for searching and discovery!

      • Keep track of your research with a citation manager like Mendeley or Zotero!

Critically evaluate evidence and sources.

• • • • Check out this short video for how to approach reading a scholarly article.

Develop a structure or outline for the assignment, including the reference list.

• • • • The IMRaD outline may be adapted for most papers--even reflection assignments!

        • • • Introduction - What is your topic or research question and what prompted you to select it?

            • Methods - How did you explore the topic?

            • Results - What did you find out about the topic?

            • Discussion - What conclusions can you draw as a result of your exploration?

Write your first draft.

• If you need help getting started, refer to these tips!

Polish, format, and revise reference list to just include those resources you cited.

• Remember: Writing is editing!  Doing revisions is just part of the writing process.

• APA requires that you cite every reference in your text and you provide a reference for every citation.