Definingaresearchquestionforyourtermpaper

Definingaresearchquestionforyourtermpaper
Defining a research question for your term paper
Basic criteria for a research question:
It must be possible to answer it (within a reasonable time span)
It must be specific
Once you have an idea for a research question, find out
what has been written on the topic before (library, google scholar + previous theses)
what kind of and how much data you need
spoken/written English
texts, words, sentences …
different text types
which corpus/corpora you are going to use
how you want to classify your examples
Where can you find the ideas?
special interest
claims made in grammars or linguistics articles that you distrust or disagree with
suggested topics for further research at the end of research articles
'hands-on' exercises in your courses
discussions with teacher and/or other students
Getting started
talk to your teacher about your research idea
formulate a research question (or set of research questions)
form a hypothesis: i.e. what do you think you will find out
read secondary literature (but not forever)
start as early as possible with finding data and analysing them
write a tentative outline
set deadlines for yourself
As a rule: the more precisely you have formulated your research question and your hypotheses, the easier it is to get started with the real work. Reading
Gibaldi, Joseph. 2009. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research
Papers. New York: Modern Language Association of America. Johannesson, Nils-Lennart 1993 [1986] English language essays :investigation method and writing strategies. Stockholm: English
Department, University of Stockholm
Sealey, Alison. 2010. Researching English Language. A resource book for students. Oxon: Routledge.
Useful links related to writing term papers
Resource page from the University Library on the use of sources and referencing
styles: http://www.ub.uio.no/english/writing-referencing/ (English) http://w ww.ub.uio.no/skrive-referere/referere/index.html (Norwegian)
Manual for Writers of Papers in English Linguistics (by Gunnel Tottie):
http://www.es.uzh.ch/teaching/Downloads/Manual_Linguistics_201 2.pdf
Search and write (S?k og skriv): http://sokogskriv.no/en/
The University of Victoria Writer's
Guide (Canada) http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/StartHere.html。