My Research Process

                The research process of an Issues Paper is very critical when writing a research paper.  The process you take to searching for facts on your topic can determine how difficult the research will be.  With my own research process I always begin by making an outline.  In my outline I try to layout my goals and topics for each and every paragraph,  by doing this it provides me with ideas of what to search for and keywords I could use in my searches.  This makes the process of finding articles much easier.  When I began the actual research for my paper I found it to be very simple because I knew what I was looking for, and I knew there was information on the topic because I have a previous knowledge on the topic.  During my research I would have my keywords for every main paragraph I wanted to discuss in my paper, and I would search in the databases for articles pertaining to these keywords.   Having a plan going into my research was so helpful because I wasn’t wasting my time with sources that didn’t pertain to my topic.  After I found my sources by doing a quick read through, I went back through each article and highlighted everything that I thought was useful.  After I did this I made notecards and organized them so each paragraph had all the facts in the order I wanted to address them.  There is not much I would improve on in terms of my research process.   I felt like this process was very efficient and worked well for me so I would use the same process again for my next research paper.  This research paper has been enjoyable to write thus far.