Writing a Research Paper

A response to the Like Driving a Car Activity
created by Patricia Uribe (@puribe)

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Like Driving a Car Activity

In Academic Communications and College Reading and Writing, students must write a research paper. Like driving a car, writing a research paper involves many skills and many concepts. Any form of writing involves words. Students need to have an ample vocabulary and need to understand basic grammar to know how to put these words together. As such, they learn about the parts of speech and their function in a sentence. Following this, they learn how to write a complete sentence and to differentiate between the different types of sentences. They then learn how to fix sentence errors (fragments/run-ons). Once they have mastered the sentence, they can move on to putting sentences together into a paragraph. To do this, they learn paragraph structure: Topic sentence, supporting sentences, concluding sentence. They practice writing paragraphs and improve their topic sentences. They then learn how to put paragraphs together and how to use transitional words and phrases. They also learn to plan their writing by creating an outline. They are then introduced to the concept of the thesis statement. Students practice identifying theses in a variety of texts. They then practice writing theses. They are then asked to pick a topic related to their field of study and conduct research into that topic. They are taught how to access a variety of resources online, at the library, and in their community. They are also taught to properly cite and references their research. To do this, they learn about the importance of academic integrity. They also are introduced to APA@Conestoga and proper formatting of papers. It is not until after they have mastered these concepts that they can write a research paper.