Developed to help students guide themselves through the research journey as they incorporate ideas and guidance from peers, teachers, and experts.

List terms–official and unofficial–your sources use to categorize the best documents you find. Keeping a record of these terms will guide your searching and the searching of others who follow you. Consider exploring use of proper nouns–names, organizatins. What phrases would normally be enclosed by quotation marks as you search?   Del.icio.us  will help you keep track of tags you collect.  Feel free to share a tag cloud in this space!

Help your readers, and yourself, by defining any unfamiliar terms. This will help clarify your communication and help you better understand the documents you read and analyze.

Try Google’s “define:” feature to explore definitions in various areas of knowledge.  Also visit Glossarist’s collection of subject area glossaries.

Edit this area regularly, from the beginning of question brainstorming through the development of your working thesis to your final thesis. You may choose to leave breadcrumbs in a series of posts reminding us of your journey in this important part of your research. Remember, you may not discover your final thesis until well into your research when much of your evidence is collected. Visit Question Brainstormer, Developing a Thesis and Thesis Generator

Use this space in this category to craft the conclusion to your project. You may start it mid-project and it may evolve as you collect further eviden

Write about what makes your topic important.  What should a reader of your paper come to understand about gangster rap after reading your paper?  Why should a reader care?

Use the space in this category to craft a clincher sentence—one that effectively brings your project or this log to a close.

What are you going to discuss here? For what type of audience are you writing? Why are you interested in this area? What are the limitations to your exploration? Use this category to begin to craft an introduction that will hook your audience. It will likely develop in several posts as you write.