How To Read Critically & Write a Research Paper
Learning to read critically, write clearly and argue persuasively are central purposes of liberal arts colleges, graduate school education, and professional development overall.
How to Read Critically:
The first purpose of this memo is to help students read critically. Reading critically means understanding the author’s argument(s), critiquing them, and improving on them. College students in particular should be able to pull apart any argument they come across. While this sounds arrogant, this ability properly understood, should induce respect and humility.
The second purpose of this memo is to help students write and argue effectively. Most of the criteria for reading can be applied to one's own writing and argumentation.
The final purpose is to help readers use their time efficiently. Often, there is not enough time to fully read an article or a book. Articles and books must instead be "confronted" or "harvested." By focusing one’s attention on key points and issues when reading (those summed up in the next paragraph), one can grasp most of what one needs to learn from the article or book without reading every word.
The following are questions to ask of each work you read. (1) What is being argued? What causes what? (2) How persuasive is the argument? Is it crafted with well-chosen and executed methodology and with convincing evidence? (3) Who cares? Why is the argument important?
How to Write a Research Paper:
Good papers have clear summary introductions, are well written, have clear arguments supported by theories/models/concepts, use specific references to history and other factual evidence to support the argument, argue against themselves, and have citations to identify what sources were used where. These papers are persuasive.
Poor papers are marked by higher levels of writing errors (including foggy, vague, and colloquial writing), no summary introductory paragraph, no clear argument, insufficient specific references to history or course concepts, and no citations. There are many reasons not to be persuaded by these papers.
In brief, be persuasive. That means having an argument to be persuasive about, having deductive/conceptual/theoretical support for your argument, and having real-world evidence to support your argument.
If you start your paper by being foggy and unclear, then it is highly likely that the rest of the paper will meander and that your arguments and evidence will be poorly connected. Remedy: put a clear argument and roadmap up front! (A roadmap briefly lays out the upcoming sections of the paper.) Write your introduction, then re-write it after you have written the rest of your paper.
Have the courage to listen to your inner voice that tells you when you are not being clear and that something needs to be cut or re-written. Yes, it is an effort to change what you have already written, or to delete it and start again. Good writing is hard work for almost everyone. Your inner editor will get better over time. As you become more willing and able to self-criticize and edit, your writing will improve.
Attached to this page is the full portable document format (PDF) file that will assist you in reading critically and writing a research paper.