The primary thing to keep in mind during the research phase is that you're seeking primarily to inform your own thinking on the topic. You’re not looking at what others have written in order to provide you with an opinion. The point of writing the paper is to explore your own thoughts about a topic. Researching what others have said will make your own opinion more interesting, at the very least, and it might even make you change your mind.

It's useful to begin with a few questions related to your topic. These should be aspects of the topic that have made you curious. If you haven't found such questions, you'll need to do some more prewriting exercises to get the creative juices, and your own intellectual passions, flowing.

The attitude with which to begin searching is, "I want to know what other people have discovered when examining the same question." At this point you're not looking for evidence to prove a position. Your mind is open to all the possibilities. Think of it as gathering all the best thinkers on this topic in one room to have a discussion. You're the moderator of the discussion, and you want to hear from everyone before you make up your mind. If you keep this mindset during the research phase, it's far more likely that your final paper will keep the reader engaged.

Narrowing the Scope

Of course, with the vast amount of information available at our fingertips today, it's unlikely you'll be able to read everything ever written on a topic. It's useful, therefore, to create some guidelines for your search that will narrow the pool.

Ask yourself, for example, whether your topic has a timeless quality or is best informed by recent opinion. A paper exploring whether Hamlet's goal of revenge was achieved could draw on sources from all ages, whereas the theme of revenge in recent political events would require current sources.

When you write expository essays, you hear a lot about primary and secondary research. A primary source is authored by the person who conducted the study, or who created the particular theory or line of thought being discussed. Secondary sources may quote primary sources to support a point or draw conclusions from examining many primary sources. Most of the time, it's useful to initially consult secondary sources because they can point you toward the primary sources that most interest you. For the purpose of your paper, you'll want to quote the study or the thinker (the primary source) directly — first, because you want to be sure you really understand what the author is concluding (secondary sources can misrepresent the primary source), and second, because by reading the primary source, you'll get the whole picture, rather than just the part selected by the secondary source's author. Remember, you're assembling the best thinkers, and you want to understand all of their arguments.

Diving In

So, how does one begin? With all the cautions about not using the Internet for research, if we keep in mind that we're after primary sources, we needn't be afraid of using a search engine to begin our investigation. While Wikipedia isn't acceptable as a source itself, it can certainly give us a starting point. Putting your question right into your search engine can start you on a treasure hunt. Even just scanning the list, I can jot down some ideas that help me better define what I'm interested in finding out. And as I click, I can begin to follow "clues" to what leading thinkers or researchers (depending on my topic) have concluded.

Here's how a student might winnow a research topic about the women's movement in the 1970s. She begins with the question, "How has the women's movement of the 1970s affected today's women?" Putting that question into a search engine yields many articles, some very recent. Reading a few of these (and taking notes as she goes on exactly where she got her information) leads her to make the statement, "Largely due to the radical feminist faction of the 1970s women's movement, girls born in the twenty-first century have opportunities and expectations well beyond what was possible for those born in the middle of the twentieth century." Though this will not be her final thesis statement (find out why, below), it is narrow enough for her to start finding more specific information.

Be Ready to Change Course

As you narrow the scope of your research, you'll be finding out things you didn't know and encountering perspectives you hadn't considered. Resist the temptation to ignore that which contradicts the conclusion you were heading toward. You might actually change your mind in the course of your research, and that just shows how flexible your thinking is. You can also keep an open mind about how you're going to present your paper. The student above, for example, may find so many comparisons in her reading to the women's suffrage movement that she becomes intrigued and writes an essay contrasting the ERA campaign with the campaign for women's suffrage.

Back to the Drawing Board

At any time during the research process, you can clarify your thinking by using one of the prewriting exercises. Sometimes, a concept map can be of use during this phase, helping you see how things are related. You might find that what you thought was the central question is actually one of your arguments, and most of your lines come off a different bubble, which you can decide to make your thesis.

How Researching Can Go Wrong

Too Many Sources

Continually making your search more specific will help you avoid getting overwhelmed by research.

The reason some people dread research is that they feel overwhelmed. It's easy to do if you continually look at all the information available on a topic. It's simply impossible to read and digest all that information! The solution is to recognize that you're in control of the process. You have a question, you find information that informs you, and you make your question more specific. You keep at it (a more specific question, finding a variety of well-thought-out answers to the question, which lead to a still-more-specific question) until you feel confident creating a statement you can stand behind. 

Another thing that can trip us up is neglecting to keep track of where we find what. There are useful software programs designed to help organize quotes and points with their source material, but all that's necessary is pen and paper or a computer document. As you read, if you find something relevant, immediately make a note of the reference material for that source (book, article, website) and then underneath, enter the relevant research. There are more complicated methods for longer papers, but generally this works fine for essays. Just be sure you know in advance what form your references will need to take, so you gather all the information you'll need. You don't want to have to seek out every source again when you're writing your reference page. Ideally, you'll code each piece of text you put into your paper so that you always know which reference it's attached to, even if you move it around in the paper.