Researching the Long Report
Including the Following Areas:

Beginning your research:

Let's assume that you have found a topic already for your Long Report -- for instance, "Finding the Best Treatment for Ebola."  (Ebola is a deadly disease which has had outbreaks in Africa and also in Texas and Virginia.)  You would need to find several separate treatments and then compare them under a set of Criteria set up for evaluating treatments.

The next step is to find source material, by using the books and journals in the library, over the Internet, and by conducting Interviews (all of these 3 types of sources are to be used in your Long Report.)


Electronic Sources in the Louisiana Tech University Library  

Prescott Memorial Library has an extensive collection of E-Resources, accessible on the menu below.  Use the "back" button on your browser to return to this page.


PML HOME. Image Credit: Laura Seaman
To go to the
Library Home Page

 
             
Catalog
Indexes and E-Journals
Library Services
Help
General Library Information
Search the Library Pages







   



Louisiana Tech University Web Page
To go to the
Tech Home Page





Searching the World Wide Web for Information


Here is a newly created Technical Communication Libraray:

Eserver Technical Communication Library



Here are some suggestions given by the Internet Public Library on conducting your reserch and beginning your writing:

Here is another source which gives advice about on-line research and writing:
 

Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial

From the Library at the University of California, Berkeley



Informational sites to use for collecting data about a wide variety of topics and research areas:  (You should look at all of these Web sites when choosing a Long Report topic and when doing research on your topic.)
 

Other Internet Sources for Research in Language, Literature, and Composition

Online Resources Provided by Writing Centers

A List of On-line Writing Centers


Search Engines


Search Engines to Search the Web for Text and Web Sites:

To go to a list of Web Search Engines and information about Search Engines

Specific Search Engines:  The following five search engines do a good job in searching through a broad range of text to find needed key words and concepts. Since they do not cover the same exact source material, you should use several of them when doing research on a particular subject.
 


Google
Google is very fast.


UncleSam
Google has a specialized variation, which searches only government documents.


Alta Vista
Indexes the text of Internet materials. If you get too many entries, go to theAdvanced Search option.

        Search AllinOne MetaSearch!
       
Will combine up to 8 search engines



Let's assume that you have found an article on Ebola, and this is a photocopy or print-out of it:
 
Example of a Photocopied Page or Printed Web Page
December 29, 1995                                 Source A
First Vaccine Against Ebola Virus 

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Researchers have developed the first vaccine that effectively immunizes laboratory animals against the deadly Ebola virus. 

According to a report in the January issue of the journal Nature Medicine, the new vaccine is a form of gene therapy using pieces of DNA that give rise to viral proteins. Injected into the muscles of guinea pigs, the vaccine resulted in proteins that triggered immunity against the virus. 

In tests, animals exposed to the virus two months after immunization did not become infected. Guinea pigs were used because they are very susceptible to the Ebola virus, just as humans are. 

According to the study's leader, Dr. Gary Nabel, professor of internal medicine and biological chemistry at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the findings can be viewed as "an important first step" towards a vaccine for the Ebola virus. 

"Most people who die from Ebola infection have no evidence that they have generated immunity to the virus," Nabel points out. "That's why the news that it is possible to generate immunity to Ebola is good news because we didn't really know that a vaccine would be possible," he says. 

The vaccine used in the study contains plasmids, segments of laboratory-grown DNA responsible for the production of certain Ebola virus proteins. It is these proteins that the immune system recognizes as foreign. Thus, vaccinated animals exposed to the Ebola virus are able to resist the infection. 

Ebola virus infection progresses rapidly, causing internal and external bleeding, and is swiftly fatal, often within days. But study co-authors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, found no traces of the virus in the organs of any of the immunized animals they examined. 

Nabel says the next step is to study the vaccine in non-human primates, followed by carefully controlled trials of the vaccine's safety and efficacy in people. "In none of these trials will human subjects be exposed to the Ebola virus," Nabel says. 

If the next phase of studies proves promising, he estimates that testing in people could begin within one to two years. 

SOURCE: Nature Medicine (1997;4(1):37-42) 
---- OnLine Source: American Heart Association (AHA) at URL 
http://www.amhrt.org/Reuters/con/t12290f.txt.html 
 


Recording your research:

The first thing you do is to make a Bibliography Card for the above source, giving the material one would use to find it in the Library and to list the article in the Bibliography for your Long Report.
 

Bibliography Card
Source A

SOURCE: Nature Medicine (1997;4(1):37-42) 
---- OnLine Source: American Heart Association (AHA) at URL 
http://www.amhrt.org/Reuters/con/t12290f.txt.html 

You would call this source Source A; then all the notes you took from this article would be put on Information Note Cards, also marked Source A; at the bottom you would give the exact page number of that source.  The information on this Information Note Card is the information I have highlighted in Red in the copy of the Web Page article, above.  The Page Number of the quotation is given as Page 1.  So, an Information Note Cards from the above source would look like this:
 

Information Note Card from the above source
Source A

"Ebola virus infection progresses rapidly, causing internal and external bleeding, and is swiftly fatal, often within days. But study co-authors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, found no traces of the virus in the organs of any of the immunized animals they examined." 
 

page 38

Then, when you use the material on the Note Card and Photocopy in your Long Report, you would list it in the Numbered Bibliography.  Here is an example of a numbered Bibliography, done as you are to do it in this course.  Note that Source A, above, becomes Source 5 in the Bibliography below.  The note, above, from Source A, would then be from Source 5 in your paper.  And the note, since it was taken from page 38 of source 5, would be documented this way in your paper:  (5:38).  In other words, Source 5 in your bibliography and page 38 in Source 5.
 
 

BIBLIOGRAPHY


  1. American Management Association. Drug Abuse: the Workplace Issues.   New York: AMA Membership Publication Division, 1990: 93.
  2.  
  3. Barnett, Timothy.  Assistant Professor of Management.Louisiana Tech University.  Personal Interview. Ruston, LA. June 15, 1996.
  4.  
  5. Brockler, Rob.  "Industry Standards in Workplace DrugTesting." Personnel Journal  April 1992: 128-132.
  6.  
  7. Brown, Darell R, and George R. Gray. "Issue in Drug Testing for the Private Sector." Focus July 1992: 21.
  8.  
  9. Nature Medicine (1997;4(1): 37-42) OnLine Source: American Heart Association (AHA) at URL http://www.amhrt.org/Reuters/con/t12290f.txt.html 

  10.  


Using researched material in your Long Report:

Let's assume that the material on the Information Note Card, above, has become Source 5 in your numbered Bibliography.  Then, you would use its number in the Bibliography and the page number on the Note Card to Document the text of your paper.  Here is how the article material, put on the note card above, would appear in your Long Report; I have highlighted the quoted materia in red:
 
 

Example of a documented quotation used in the Long Report -- the same material from the above article and note card
TREATMENT OF EBOLA 

Problem 

History

     Ebola is a much studied disease; however, no one is sure which animal or insect carries it, as the following quotation notes:  "Ebola virus infection progresses rapidly, causing internal and external bleeding, and is swiftly fatal, often within days. But study co-authors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, found no traces of the virus in the organs of any of the immunized animals they examined" (5: 38).
 


Here is an another example of a section of the Long Report; to make it easier to see, the documentation is highlighted in red:



 
 
 

As can be seen, frequent documentation of the text is required.


What then, should be documented?

Any fact that is not common knowledge should be documented; anything you did not know before you began your research must have come from your reading; that information should be documented.

Anything that is an opinion, judgment, or interpretation of material must be documented; to show who holds that opinion, etc., since there is not universal agreement about it.

And, it is particularly important that in doing your research you differentiate between facts and opinions and not mistake one for the other yourself and not present one as the other in your paper.

And, you must keep a record of your research by putting everything on note cards, photocopies, or print-outs of material; then, you must keep this material cataloged, as discussed above.

The Note Cards, Bibliography Cards, and Photocopies or Print-outs of these sources must also be turned in with the paper.   Your Long Report package is to be a product of your research and is also to be a record of your research.  So, your photocopies, print-outs, bibliography cards, and note cards are required parts of the Long Report and are to be submitted as part of the Long Report package.  The grade on the Long Report will be affected by the quality of that research package and how well that researched material is used to document the Long Report.


How much Documentation is required?

The amount of documentation varies with the topic and depth of study; there is no standard number of citations per page for a research paper (a Citation is when you use a source one time; in the above example of a paper, a citation is shown by the numbers in parenthesis.  (3:14) is one citation of a source. And, one source will probably be cited several times in the Long Report).  The Long Report for English 303 by Internet begins with the assumption (on the Proposal) that a mimimum of 10 sources will be used or cited in the paper.  Citations will be used to document that a problem exists, in setting realistic criteria, in describing possible solutions, and in the comparison material used in finding a solution.

With three criteria and three possible solutions, a minimum of 9 citations would have to be used just in the comparison sections.  Adding in the Problem section (which must be documented), the Criteria section (which will ordinarily have citations), the minimum of three Graphics (which must be documented), and the Possible Solution section (which must be documented), it would seem that a 10 source paper will have at least 20 citations and most likely a lot more.  And, that is not to say that a 10 source paper needs only 20 citations; as stated above, any information brought into the paper from outside sources needs to be cited, if it requires 50 citations to give the sources of the information.  And, many papers will have more than the minimum of 10 sources, requiring more citation for the information to be adequately documented.


See also the following English 303 Internet sections for discussion of the above topics:

Information about Documentation and Plagiarism (It is crucial that you know the definition of Plagiarism and the ethical use of source material)

How to Take Notes: Examples of Note Cards and Source Cards  (Repeats some of the above material on note taking.)

Summarizing, Quoting, and Citing Print and Electronic Sources  (Includes APA and MLA styles and discipline-specific documentation in the fields of Anthropology, Business Writing, Government Publications, History, Legal Writing, and Medicine.)