A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Eighth Edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and)

■ Ask a question worth answering.

■ Find an answer that you can support with good reasons.

■ Find reliable evidence to support your reasons.

■ Draft a report that makes a good case for your answer.

■ Revise that draft until readers will think you met the first four goals.

And they know that readers will think their facts add up to something only when those facts serve as evidence to support its answer.

only with a question can a researcher know which facts to look for and which to keep

More experienced researchers usually begin not with just a topic but with a research question,

3. so that I can help others understand Z

2. because I want to find out Y

I am working on the topic X

also show us why their question was worth asking, how its answer helps us understand some bigger issue in a new way.

Your success as a researcher thus depends not just on how well you gather and analyze data but on how clearly you report your reasoning so that your readers can test and judge it before making your claims part of their knowledge and understanding.

They must be able to follow your reasoning from evidence that they accept to the claim you draw from it.