LibGuides: Welcome: Understanding Your Assignment

Types of Assignments

An analytical research paper states the topic that the writer will be exploring, usually in the form of a question, initially taking a neutral stance. The body of the paper will present multifaceted information and, ultimately, the writer will state their conclusion, based on the information that has unfolded throughout the course of the essay. This type of paper hopes to offer a well-supported critical analysis without necessarily persuading the reader to any particular way of thinking.

Credit to: The King's University Library

Writing an Analytical Essay

An annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of your sources. Depending on your project or the assignment, your annotations may do one or more of the following:

Summarize: Some annotations merely summarize the source. What are the main arguments? What is the point of this book or article? What topics are covered? If someone asked what this article/book is about, what would you say? The length of your annotations will determine how detailed your summary is.
Assess: After summarizing a source, it may be helpful to evaluate it. Is it a useful source? How does it compare with other sources in your bibliography? Is the information reliable? Is this source biased or objective? What is the goal of this source?
Reflect: Once you've summarized and assessed a source, you need to ask how it fits into your research. Was this source helpful to you? How does it help you shape your argument? How can you use this source in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic?

If you're doing this for a class, you should get specific guidelines from your instructor.

Credit to: The King's University Library

A literature review is a systematic review of the published literature on a specific topic or research question.

The literature review is designed to analyze-- not just summarize-- scholarly writings related directly to your research question. It represents the literature that provides background information on your topic and shows a correspondence between those writings and your research question.

Credit to: The King's University Library

Conducting a Literature Review

Writing reflectively involves critically analyzing an experience, recording how it has impacted you and what you plan to do with your new knowledge. It can help you to reflect on a deeper level as the act of getting something down on paper often helps people to think an experience through.

The key to reflective writing is to be analytical rather than descriptive. Always ask why rather than just describing what happened during an experience.

Credit to: Cambridge University Libraries

Parts of the Research Paper
Depending on your assignment, you may be asked to include some or all of the following components in your research paper:

Title, Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, Materials & Methods, Data/Analysis & Results, Conclusion, Future Work

Narrowing Your Topic

A common challenge when beginning to write a research paper is determining how to narrow down your topic. Typically the topic of study will be too broad and in order to successfully complete your study you will need to narrow your scope.

Here are some strategies to help narrow your topic:

Aspect -- choose one lens through which to view the research problem, or look at just one facet of it.

e.g., rather than studying the role of food in South Asian religious rituals, explore the role of food in Hindu ceremonies or the role of one particular type of food among several religions.

Components -- determine if your initial variable or unit of analysis can be broken into smaller parts, which can then be analyzed more precisely.

e.g., a study of tobacco use among adolescents can focus on just chewing tobacco rather than all forms of usage or, rather than adolescents in general, focus on female adolescents in a specific age range who choose to use tobacco.

Methodology -- how you gather information can reduce the domain of interpretive analysis needed to address the research problem.

e.g., a single case study can be designed to generate data that does not require as extensive an explanation as using multiple cases.

Place -- generally, the smaller the geographic unit of analysis, the more narrow the focus.

e.g., rather than study trade relations in North America, study trade relations between Mexico and the United States.

Relationship -- ask yourself how do two or more different perspectives or variables relate to one another. Designing a study around the relationships between specific variables can help constrict the scope of analysis.

e.g., cause/effect, compare/contrast, contemporary/historical, group/individual, male/female, opinion/reason, problem/solution.

Time -- the shorter the time period of the study, the more narrow the focus.

e.g., study of relations between Russia and the United States during the Vietnam War.

Type -- focus your topic in terms of a specific type or class of people, places, or phenomena.

e.g., a study of developing safer traffic patterns near schools can focus on SUVs, or just student drivers, or just the timing of traffic signals in the area.

Cause -- focus your topic to just one cause for your topic.

e.g., rather than writing about all the causes of WW1, just write about nationalism.

Credit: USC Library

When searching for resources, DO NOT enter the whole research question. Unlike a Google search, databases cannot sort through all the words, and you will either get zero results or your results will be all over the place. The best method is to create a search strategy using keywords.

Begin by examining your research question to determine the major concepts or words with a specific meaning. These terms will form the basis of your search. Your keywords will typically be nouns or descriptive words. It helps to make a list of synonyms for your keywords as you will go through many iterations on your search for supporting articles.

Generating Keywords Worksheet

SELECT research questions and search tools.

EXTRACT keywords and terms.

APPLY search strategies.

RUN your search.

CHART your search. Don't forget to log into our EBSCO Discovery Service so that you can save your results.