Adding your own voice to a research assignment

As you read and make notes during the research process, you should consider some of the following ways to add your own thoughts and ideas to your research papers:

• Compare/contrast multiple articles’ findings
• Explain a quotation
• Disagree with the article’s findings, and explain why
• Agree with the article, but with a difference
• Agree and disagree at the same time
• Find gaps in the existing research
• Find fault with methods
• Find fault with the assumptions
• Find fault with the conclusions^[1]

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^[1]Several of these ideas are drawn from Graff, G., & Birkenstein, C. (2010). They say / I say: The moves that matter in academic writing. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7098068