Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

For courses in Research Writing, Documentation Writing, and Advanced Composition.
Featuring an engaging, direct writing style and inquiry-based approach, The Curious Researcher: A Guide to Writing Research Papers emphasizes that curiosity is the best reason for investigating ideas and information. An appealing alternative to traditional research texts, this popular research guide stands apart for its motivational tone, its conversational style, and its conviction that research writing can be full of rewarding discoveries. Offering a wide variety of examples from student and professional writers, this popular guide shows that good research and lively writing do not have to be mutually exclusive. Students are encouraged to find ways to bring their writing to life, even though they are writing with "facts." A unique chronological organization sets up achievable writing goals while it provides week-by-week guidance through the research process. Full explanations of the technical aspects of writing and documenting source-based papers help students develop sound research and analysis skills. The text also includes up-to-date coverage of MLA and APA styles.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction: Rethinking the research paper
• Exericse 1 This I believe
• Unlearning 101
• Using this book
• The exercises
• The five-week plan
• Alternatives to the five-week plan
• The research paper versus the research report
• Discovering your purpose
• How formal should it be?
• The question is you
• Thinking like an academic writer
• A method of discovery
• Firing on four cylinders of information
• Facts don't kill
• Exericse 2 Reflecting on Theories of Intelligence by Bruce Ballenger
• Creative research papers?
• Chapter 1 The First Week
• The importance of getting curious
• Seeing the world with wonder
• Getting the pot boliing
• Exericse 1.1 Builing an interest inventory
• Other ways to find a topic
• What is a good topic?
• Where's Waldo and the organizing power of questions
• Exericse 1.2 The myth of the boring
• Making the most of an assigned topic
• Developing a working knowledge
• Case study on developing working knowledge: Theories of dog training
• Research strategies for developing working knowledge
• Software to manage your research
• The reference librarian: A living source
• Narrowing the subject
• Exericse 1.3 finding the question
• Crafting your opening inquiry question
• Possible purposes for a research assignment
• Exericse 1.4 Research proposal
• Reading for research
• Reading rhetorically
• Strategies for reading rhetorically
• Chapter 2 The Second Week
• What are your research routines?
• Google vs. the library
• Planning the dive
• Find enough information by using the best search terms
• Index searches using the Library of Congress subject headings
• Keyword searching in library databases
• Keyword searches on the world wide web
• Find varied sources
• Primary vs. secondary sources
• Objective vs. subjective
• Stable or unstable?
• Find quality sources
• When was it published?
• Why journal articles are better than magazine articles
• Look for often-cited authors
• Not all books are alike
• Evaluating online sources
• A key to evaluating Internet sources
• Developing focused knowledge
• What about a thesis?
• Suspending judgment?
• Testing assumptions?
• What are you arguing?
• Keeping track of what you find: Building a bibliography
• Searching library databases for books and articles
• Finding Books
• Understanding call numbers*
• Coming up empty-handed?
• Checking bibliographies
• Interlibrary loan
• Article databases
• Saving search results
• Advanced Internet research techniques
• Types of search engines
• Exericse 2.2 Academic research on the Internet
• Living sources: Interviews and surveys
• Arranging interviews
• Finding experts
• Finding nonexperts affected by your topic
• Making contact
• Conducting interviews
• The e-mail interview
• Planning informal surveys
• Avoid loaded questions
• Avoid vague questions
• Drawbacks of open-ended questions
• Designing your multiple choice questions
• Using scaled responses
• Conducting surveys
• Fieldwork: Research on what you see and hear
• Preparing for fieldwork
• Notetaking strategies
• Using what you see and hear
• Exericse 2.4 DataViz: Tell a story with facts
• Chapter 3 The Third Week
• Writing in the middle
• Conversing
• Exericse 3.1 Getting into a conversation with a fact
• Plagiarism: What it is, why it matters, and how to avoid it
• Plagiarism Q & A
• Exericse 3.2 Saying it back to a source
• Why plagiarism matters
• A taxonomy of copying, quotation, paraphrase, and summary
• Paraphrasing
• Summarizing
• Quoting
• Notetaking
• Exericse 3.3 Dialogic notetaking: Listing in, speaking up
• "What? I Failed" by Thomas Lord
• Notetaking techniques
• The double-entry journal
• The research log
• Narrative notetaking
• Online research notebooks
• When you're coming up short: More advanced searching techniques
• Advanced library searching techniques
• Advanced Internet search techniques
• Thinking outside the box: Alternative sources
• Exericse 3.4 Building an annotated bibliography
• Chapter 4 The Fourth Week
• Getting to the draft
• Exploration or argument?
• Exericse 4.1 Dialogue with Dave
• S.O.F.T.
• Organizing the draft
• Delayed thesis structure
• Question-claim structure
• Exploring or arguing: An example
• Preparing to write the draft
• Refining the question
• Refining the thesis
• Exericse 4.2 Sharpening your point
• Deciding whether to say I
• Getting personal without being personal
• Starting to write the draft: Beginning at the beginning
• Flashlights or floodlights?
• Writing multiple leads
• Exericse 4.3 Three ways in
• Writing for reader interest
• Whose steering and where to?
• Working the common ground
• Putting people on the page
• Writing a strong ending
• Using surprise
• Writing with sources
• The weave of research writing
• Handling quotes
• Other quick tips for controlling quotations
• Citing sources
• Driving through the first draft
• Chapter 5 The Fifth Week
• Revising is re-seeing (or breaking up is hard to do)
• Global revision: Revising for purpose, thesis, and structure
• Writer- to reader-based prose
• Exericse 5.1 Wrestling with the draft
• Reviewing the structure
• Exericse 5.2 Directing the reader's respose
• Using your thesis to revise
• Exericse 5.3 Cut and paste revision
• Examining the wreckage
• Other ways of reviewing the structure
• Re-researching
• Finding quick facts
• Local revision: Revising for language
• Who are you in the draft
• Tightening seams between what you say and what they say
• Scrutinizing paragraphs
• Scrutinizing sentences
• Exericse 5.4 Cutting clutter
• Preparing the final manuscript
• Considering a "reader-friendly" design
• Using images
• Following MLA conventions
• Proofreading your paper
• Exericse 5.5 Picking off the lint
• Ten common mistakes in research papers
• Using the "find" or "search" function
• Avoiding sexist language
• Looking back and moving on
• Appendix A Understanding Research Assignments
• Appendix B Guide to MLA Styles
• Appendix C Guide to APA Style
• Index