Research Paper Questions

Many of you have had some excellent questions that you have asked in class and through e-mail.  In an effort to provide you with additional resources to support your writing process, I will be using the blog to post some of your questions here.  As you e-mail me, I will add your questions (anonymously, of course) so that both you and your peers can refer to my answers as needed.


Question:
I was trying to find some things for the note cards but I can't find a lot. When I read the sources I find some things but when I keep reading they talk about some different things.

Answer:

What you are finding is completely normal.  The majority (with rare exception) of the sources that you will find will not ALL be just on exactly what you are trying to prove in your paper.  That's what makes your paper worth reading; it's original.  You are gathering information from different sources and piecing together what is important to your thesis.  The other stuff, the parts that are not, just discard.  Keep the relevant information and use that.  (This is why the more sources you have, the better.  Keep looking for more sources if you need them.  You may only be able to use parts of a particular article.)