Sterling Paulson-Research Process

Research is a crucial aspect of writing a well-informed, influential essay. Without it, all writing would be little more than unproven statements, broad generalities, common knowledge, and personal opinions. With my own research, I like to begin by narrowing down my topic so that I will be able to find more relevant results. This is also helpful in focusing my paper. I generally use searches of online databases for my research, including PubMed or just the search toolbar on lib.byu.edu. I generally search for peer-reviewed articles so that I know that they have some merit, credibility and relevance.  With each article, I read the title to determine how potentially useful it is, and if it passes this test I move on to looking at the year it was written, the journal, and the article abstract. If it passes each of these tests, I save it as a PDF and read it in full and take notes or highlight important information.  I find that this is a good way to find research for several reasons. It is efficient and allows me to get rid of outdated or unrelated results quickly.  It also allows me to begin formulating a more detailed outline for my paper in my head as I gather information. Highlighting and/or taking notes is also useful because it allows me to quickly find facts or statements that I want to use in my paper. This is the process that I have used for my Issues Paper, and I have noticed many of these benefits as I've worked.  I feel that through research my Issues paper has become much more focused and detailed than when I initially chose my topic, and I feel that it was fairly easy to begin writing my paper due to the fact that I had already read quite a bit of material on the subject. Overall, I feel that research can be time consuming, but for most topics it is fairly easy to find results and use research in an essay.