Room for 10/2/2006

For October 2, 2006 class, we're going to use A402 (Administrative Building)

Please pass on this info.

Aiden

Writing your Thesis

A Good Working Thesis
A Good Working Thesis, p. 16, Keys for Writers: a Handbook, Ann Raimes, 2nd Edition, US: Houghton Mifflin (1999)

• narrows your topic to a single main idea that you want to communicate
• asserts your position clearly and firmly in a sentence that makes a claim about a topic
• states not simply a fact but an opinion
• makes a generalization that can be supported by details, facts, and examples within the assigned limtations of time and space;
• stimulates the curiousity and interest in readers and prompts them to thing, "Why do you say that?" and read on.

1. A good thesis statement also may be one or more of the following:
A strong, thought-provoking, or controversial statement

Bilingual education has not fulfilled its early promise

2. A call to action

All inner-city schools should set up bilingual programs.

3. A question that will be answered in the essay
What can bilingual education accomplish for a child? It can lead to academic and personal development

4. A preview or reflections of the structure of the research
Bilingual education suffers from two main problems: a shortgae of trained teachers and lack of parental involvement.

---------------
Now, look at your topic, or if you have already written your thesis statement, look at it again and compare it with the guidelines above. Does it meet the guidelines? Should you edit it and make it better?

Aiden

Join the yahoogroup

To help us speedy things up, I think it would be best to invite you to join the research writing yahoogroup. This will help me to better guide your research work.

To join the Research Writing Yahoogroup, go to researchwriting and click on Join this group!

I look forward to approving your memberships.

Aiden

Formulating research question(s)

Once you have focused your topic so that it has an appropriate scope for your assignment, time frame, and length requirements, you need to formulate a research question(s). To do so, determine the most important questions that you want to ask and answer.

Consider for example these possible research questions developed from the broad subject area of bilingual education:

* Should bilingual education be extended to monolingual children?
* What teaching methods work best in bilingual classrooms?
* For what reasons do people send (or not send) their children to bilingual schools?
* Are children who are placed in bilingual programs more successful in later grades than those in English-only programs?

A research question will give you a sense of direction. Frequently as you do your research and take notes, you will have in mind a tentative response to your question.

----------------

Look at your topic, can you think of questions that you would like to answer in your research?

Post your research questions on your blog.

Aiden

Welcome

Welcome to research writing class SY 2006. To help you get started, I will be posting links to good websites here on this blog. Please use the comments area if you need to get in touch with me regarding your research work.

aiden