This document provides guidance on writing a research paper, including choosing primary and secondary sources, developing research questions, conducting initial research online and in libraries, taking notes, organizing sources, and formatting citations. Key aspects are selecting 1-2 primary sources and scholarly secondary sources to shed light on them, examining a class theme, developing productive research questions, and keeping a research log.

1. Recipe for a Paper
• A group of primary sources with clearly defined
boundaries (chronological, authorial, thematic)
• A group of scholarly secondary sources that can
shed light on your primary sources
– Note: For this assignment, I’m going to require that
these be scholarly articles or books, rather than web
pages
• Examination of a class theme
• A Set of Productive Questions

2. Class Themes, 1-2 PM Section
Consumerism
• •Moral panics
• •Parenting styles
• •Censorship
• •Discrimination (race or gender)
• •Change over time
• •Agency in children
• •Labor / leisure/ fun
• •Technology
• •Stereotypes
• •Advertising
• •Income inequality/class/privilege
• •Innocence
• •Adult nostalgia
• •War and violence
• •Propaganda/indoctrination

3. Class Themes, 2-3 PM Section
• Moral panics
• Consumer inequality
• Consumption/Advertising
• Propaganda and war
• Innocence
• Parenting styles
• Children’s Agency
• Place of the child in the family
• Gender roles
• Race/ethnicity
• Child labor – play – leisure – education
• Emotional labor – child performers – beauty pageants
• Play
• Separation of children’s culture from adult
• Religion
• Technology gap
• Adult nostalgia
• Class/privilege/money
• Generational gap
• Sports
• Entertainment produced by adults for kids vs. kids’ self-entertainment

4. Initial Research Phase: The Wider Web
• Find out basic facts about your starting point: Who?
What? When? Where?
• Is the source that is your starting point part of a bigger
group of similar sources? Could any of these form a
good basis for a comparative examination?
• Note sources of information (ex: books listed in
Wikipedia “citations” section) that are more credible;
keep track of these, and try to find them later in the
library
• Use “snowball method”: as you find out more, use your
new knowledge to fuel your search

5. Starting Points
• Group 1: “Wall-E”
• Group 2: Pokemon
• Group 3: “The Cosby Show”
• Group 4: Dr. James Dobson, Dare to Discipline
• Group 5: Baby Einstein
• Group 6: The Case of Trayvon Martin

6. Keeping a Research Log
• Web searches:
– Bookmark pages
– Keep lists of leads
– PDF or print key articles, in case they disappear
• Library Databases:
– Write down search terms you’ve exhausted
– Copy and paste names and call numbers of books
you might want

7. Discuss with Your Research Pod
• At this point in your research, how do you
think you could turn the primary source you
were given into an 8-pp paper, to be executed
with a month’s lead time?
– What boundaries would you impose?
– What themes would you investigate?
– What other primary sources would you use for the
sake of comparison or contextualization?

8. Research Phase 2: Finding Context in
Verified Places
• Secondary sources give you verified
history, tell you what other people think about
your primaries or your themes
• Look for secondaries that are directly about
your primaries, but also ones that might give
you historical context or address the themes
you’re investigating

9. How to Search for Secondary Sources
• When looking for secondary sources, what
search terms might you use?
– What larger movements or phenomena relate to
your primary sources?
– What themes might you be addressing?
– What bigger histories might you need to
investigate in order to contextualize your
primaries?

10. Why am I making you pick “scholarly”
secondary sources?
• If you’re using them for informational
purposes, you know the history in them is
verified (peer-reviewed)
• If you’re using them for purposes of argument
or theory, you know the argument is carefully
considered and probably
(though, admittedly, not always) interesting

11. Approaching UTNetCat
• Search for the obvious things: names of your
primary sources, names of people or
companies involved with their production
• Search by subject heading
– If you’re unclear as to which subject headings
might be appropriate, go to a source you’ve
already identified, and click through its own
subject headings
– Cannibalize bibliographies of books you’ve already
got

12. What’s “Scholarly”?
• If the book’s publication info contains the words
“university press”
• If the book contains citations (footnotes or
parentheticals) and a bibliography
• If you investigate the book’s author(s) and find
that they’re professors of some kind (or other
acceptable authorities)
• Gray areas: journalism, cultural criticism
sometimes won’t have footnotes; you’ll have to
make the call based on author’s credibility

13. Finding Books in the Library (Nerd
Protocol)
• Keep a list of interesting call numbers
• Use the stack guide to identify their locations:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/librarymap/pcl.html
• Write down the locations of books next to their call
numbers
• Consolidate books into sections using copy and paste
• Print your list
• Bring an extra tote bag
• Work the stacks top to bottom
• Look at the books around your target book to see if any
of them might work too

14. Databases
• Go to library homepage->research tools->find
articles using databases (or this link:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/indexes/index.php)
• Pick JStor or Project Muse for scholarly articles
• Use the same keywords you’ve seen work in your
UTNetCat search
• Download articles in PDF form to avoid repeating
your search
• Google Scholar may get you some of the same
places, but will also flood you with information;
buyer beware

15. Writing Opinion vs. Writing Argument: How to
Phrase Your Research Questions
• “Are beauty pageants oversexualizing • “How does the show ‘Toddlers and
young girls?” Tiaras’ handle the depiction of its
• “Are we too dependent on contestants in terms of innocence
technology?” and sexuality?”
• “Are first-person shooter video games • “How does ‘Wall-E’ try to warn kids
too violent for kids to play?” of the dangers of overdependence on
technology? How are these warnings
the same/different from those
contained in anti-obesity campaigns?
What kinds of assumptions do the
producers of the movie/the
campaigns make about the nature of
contemporary childhood?”
• “In an analysis of web sites
frequented by young users of FPS
games, how will these users talk
about the experience of virtual
‘killing’?”

16. Citations
• Use Chicago Style (here is a guide to putting
together citations the old-fashioned
way:http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/to
ols_citationguide.html)
• Use NoodleBib
(http://www.lib.utexas.edu/citations/noodlebi
b.html) to get citations done automatically