Gathering Information
Any writing assignments requires you to gather information. You may often do some reading for non-research essays to help you develop your thinking, hone your ideas, or find an appropriate quotation, fact, or background information. A research paper on the other hand, requires more directed information gathering then an essay assignment, which includes looking for sources online and in the library that will support your thesis and include taking notes, gathering quotations and paraphrasing information.
Overview to Gathering Information for Research Essays p
Gathering information which doesn't require research
Many students ask how it is possible to gather information which doesn't require research. If you aren't going to go research, then what exactly are you going to gather? The answer is that you will be gathering your own thoughts, ideas, and previous knowledge and attempting to organize them in such a way that they will be useful to you in the writing process. These might appear in the form of ideas, opinions, memories, or arguments. There are several things that you can do to gather information in this way. First, you have to have a clear sense of your topic. Without a clear thesis, it makes it pretty tricky to gather information that will help you. Then, if you have a good idea of what you are going to be writing about, you can engage in any of the following activities.
Freewriting
Brainstorming
Clustering/mapping
Maintaining a personal journal
Or, you could
Ask questions about the subject and record the answers
Make a list of everything you know about the subject
All of these activities will help you to see how much you know about the topic. Remember, though, that after you record your information you should set it aside, and come back and look at it later. This way you may be able to see places where you left information out, or where you need to include even more. After you attempt some of these activities, you will have a better sense of what you as a writer know about your topic, and how you want to shape your information.
