Recent content by Cooper

This is why I think research methods courses should spend more time on "talk to people" and less time on "how to use the database." The best research questions I've ever come up with were from conversations. With my mom. With my friend who works at a restaurant. With the guy who cuts my hair...

I used the exact same planner for my master's thesis and it worked like magic. I literally printed it out and taped it above my desk. One thing the percentages don't capture is the waiting time. If you're waiting on IRB approval (Step 3.5 basically) or waiting for survey responses, that can add...

I've been using this trick for years and I'll add something that took me too long to figure out: change the environment when you read aloud. If you read in the same spot you wrote the paper, your brain is still in writing mode and you'll skip over things. I print it out, go to a coffee shop or a...

For years, I formatted my citations by hand. I'd read the style guide, carefully place the commas and parentheses, and cross-check every entry. It took hours. And I still made mistakes. I lost points for formatting in three different papers last year. I was convinced that citation managers were...

I'm writing a paper for a class outside my major, and I'm not sure which citation style to use. A writing guide says: “Different disciplines have different preferences: APA for social sciences, MLA for humanities, Chicago for history, IEEE for engineering” . But what about interdisciplinary...

I'm writing my research paper and I'm stuck on the theoretical framework section. A guide says: “Your theoretical framework explains the lens through which you'll analyze your data” . For example, if you're studying inequality, you might use Bourdieu's theory of social reproduction or critical...

My advisor told me my literature review “looks like an annotated bibliography” . I don't understand the difference. An annotated bibliography is a list of sources with summaries. A literature review organizes sources by theme or debate and shows how they relate to each other and to your research...