3 Research

While researching the given topic it can be very helpful to take notes throughout the process. This is important because it is a student’s responsibility to uphold academic integrity standards. If a student is not taking detailed notes while researching then it can become very easy to mislabel another scholar’s ideas as one of their own. While this can be an honest mistake it can bring on severe consequences and be a very disappointing way to devalue and delegitimize one’s paper. It is also important to take notes while researching because writing thoughts down can help organize them. It can become easier to see on a written piece of paper which arguments are connected and how they are overall connected to the topic. From these notes, a structure can begin to be built for the paper. There are many strategies to help students organize their arguments but one, in particular, is called a mind map. A mind map is a spider diagram with the topic being at the center and branches stemming from the topic to form arguments. The related arguments are then connected through branches. This can help students who benefit from visual learning. It helps students identify the flow of the paper as related topics should be listed in succession. Once the structure of the paper is written out, it becomes much easier for the student to fill in the blanks with their own knowledge and research.