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CHAPTER 6 12 GENERAL STEPS IN THE RESEARCH PROCESS

After reading this chapter you should be able to correctly answer the following questions: How does theory development help a researcher to choose an idea to study? How does theory testing help a researcher to choose an idea to study? How does solving a communication problem help a researcher to choose an idea to study? How does an interesting communication phenomenon or artifact help a researcher to choose an idea to study? How does personal experience help a researcher to choose an idea to study? Why should a communication researcher find out what is already known about a research subject? What are the strengths and weakness of using the internet for finding information about a research subject? What are the characteristics of a good research question? What plans should a communication researcher make to prepare to do the research? What are some of the reasons a researcher might use to argue that doing the research is worthwhile? Why should a researcher rewrite the final essay several times?

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You have probably done a research paper before, but not a paper involving original research. Most students experience has been with library research and that is a component of original research, but there is much more. This chapter gives you general guidelines for completing an original research project. Individual projects will have different specific details, so this is just a guide to help you plan a project. Although the steps are listed in an order, you should know that you do not necessarily have to do them in that order. The earlier steps do need to be taken sooner than the later steps, but different people may put them in a different order. Also, you should know that, although the steps are presented in a linear order that does not mean that once you complete a step you will be done with it. Some of the steps need to be revisited several times before the project is done. If you think that after you have done a step the results cannot be changed you may find yourself stuck doing something that really does not work without some revision. For this class you may not complete all of the steps, but you will need to go through most of them. Step 1: Get An Idea To Study This step may seem obvious, but it is still the starting place. In order to do original research you have to have something that you want to research, and that is often the hardest step in the process. If the study were assigned to you that would make this step much easier, but original research is rarely assigned. The task may be assigned, but not the subject. This step is complicated because it is somewhat different from the task of choosing a topic for a class term paper or a speech. Topics for class term papers are typically to explain a concept from the class and the research regarding it in depth, to demonstrate your understanding of the topic. Topics for speeches are typically to inform an audience about an important subject, or persuade an audience to take action to solve an important problem. An original research subject is similar in some ways, but different in others. The general purpose is typically to add to knowledge about communication. Since choosing the topic is different from what most students are used to, and since most students have no experience with choosing this kind of topic, it is useful to provide some ideas of where research topics come from, or the impetus for settling on a topic. Generally this changes the problem from thinking of a topic for the research project to deciding which topic to choose from several that you have thought of. The five basic places original research ideas come from are: 1. Theory Development 2. Theory Testing 3. Solving a problem 4. An Interesting Communication Phenomenon or Artifact 5. Personal Experience Theory development means that the researcher believes that there is a better explanation for a type of communication than currently exists, and does research to confirm or deny the theory he/she creates. Usually they hope to confirm it. This is often an attractive place for students start because they would like to create an explanation where none exists, but that is probably beyond what students in an introductory research class have the background to do. In order to develop a new theory the researcher needs to be aware of the existing theories to know that his/her theory has not already been proposed and what theories he/she is trying to replace. Theory development is a very strong reason to do research; it is just beyond the level that most undergraduates should attempt. It could be a useful class exercise but it would call for the student to both create the theory and to design the research, so it essentially doubles the students task. Theory testing is similar to theory development but is dealing with a theory that has already been proposed and tries to confirm it, deny it, or modify it instead of create a new one. If theory testing is the impetus for doing research then the researcher does not have to be familiar with as many existing theories

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because the theorist who proposed the theory should have already done that work. However, to test a theory the researcher needs to be familiar with enough theories to find one that he/she understands and that needs more research. Most undergraduates who take an introduction to research class do not have enough experience with theories to make that choice, so this is not a very good place for them to find a subject. On the other hand, if a student is familiar with a theory he/she could design research similar to what has already been done. That would test the theory through replication. The third impetus for communication research is to solve a communication problem. This means that the researcher recognizes there is something interfering either with effective communication or achieving the goals of communication, and decides to do research to find a better way of communicating. The communication problem can range from interpersonal communication, to small group communication, to persuasive communication, to mediated communication, to organizational communication, to intercultural communication, etc. This is very appropriate for beginners because it does not require the kind of background knowledge that is called for when working with theory. So, when you are trying to come up with a research topic try thinking of types of communication that could be improved somehow. Another impetus that is appropriate for beginners is an interesting communication phenomenon or artifact. That means that, in your everyday life, you come across a way of communicating or a rhetorical artifact that you just find interesting. When that happens, it is possible to study it in a research project. Part of the challenge if this happens is to make a case that what you found interesting is important enough that others should pay attention to the research, but that is a challenge that all researchers face for any subject. So, consider your interests when trying to think of a research topic. The final possible impetus for a research topic is personal experience. This means that there is something in the researchers personal life that generates ideas for communication research. I have heard people say that when many communication scholars had children their research started to include childrens communication. Many gay scholars became interested in researching communication among and about gays because of their personal experience. When Jenny Perez took the Communication Research class she was in a long distance relationship, which prompted her to do a project about communication in long distance relationships. She ultimately used that subject for her Masters degree thesis. Those five possible sources of ideas for research topics can also be combined. Someone who has personal experience as a sales associate may find a particular element of the sales experience interesting, may recognize that there is a problem associated with it that could be solved, and that current communication theory provides no explanation for what happens. So that person may conceive of a research idea that could fall into four of the five categories. Remember, though, that those categories are only places to find idea; they are not criteria for what makes a good idea. In other words, an idea for a topic that falls into multiple categories is not necessarily better than an idea that only involves one of them. Step 2: Find Out What Is Already Known About The Subject. One of the basic reasons to do research is to discover something that is not already known. In order to do that you have to become familiar with what is already known. When you present research as new knowledge, and it turns out that is already been done before, it can make you look uninformed, at best. For instance, a popular subject for rhetorical criticism is Martin Luther King Jr.s speech, I Have a Dream. It is an excellent speech and an important speech, which makes it a good choice to study. However, because it is excellent and important it has been studied many times already, and if you study it the same way someone else did that can make you seem uninformed. Even worse, it can make you seem like you plagiarized. On the other hand, if you study it in a new and appropriate way you can add to knowledge about the speech. To find out what is already known researchers do a literature review. The nature of literature reviews will be explained in a future chapter, but for now think of it as being similar to a term paper that

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relies on library research. The task of such a paper is to summarize what has been written about whatever your subject is. If the subject is Martin Luther King, Jr.s I Have a Dream speech then you would try to find everything you can that has been written about that speech. An even better literature review would include other relevant information about Kings life and times. The Internet has been both a blessing and a curse for students who do literature reviews. The Internet is a blessing because it provides relatively easy access to a lot of good information. When I was an undergraduate and graduate student library research meant looking up sources in the card catalog and periodical indices; finding the book, magazine, or journal in the library; then either reading it and writing notes by hand in the library or photocopying the articles and pages from the book. The Internet just did not exist. For several years after I started teaching a Communication Research class the Internet existed, but scholarly communication sources were so limited that I had to recommend against using it. Now the Internet is much more robust and is a much better source of information if you use it well. (I also had to walk five miles through waist deep snow to get to school, but that is another story.) While the Internet is now a better source of information you still have to use it judiciously. That means DO NOT just use search engines like Google for your research. Some of what you find with such search engines will be worthwhile and some will not. For scholarly research projects what you find through search engines can help you understand ideas but is generally not useful to include in the paper you write. There are two exceptions to that general statement, though. The first is that a Google-like search can be useful when you are looking for general, popular press type articles for background information to justify doing the research. That is not part of the literature review, though. The second exception is when you find an academic web site devoted to the subject. You would usually find those on a university professors web site or on the site of a scholarly association. Instead of general search engines, you should use the databases that are available through the library. One of the best for this discipline is Communication and Mass Media Complete. (CMMC). By using it you can download full text articles that are the same as if you had the journal itself. You should not stop with that database, though, because much of what we study in this field is also studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, and English. So you should also search in databases that are specific to those fields and which include journals that are not included in CMMC. For instance, one of the earlier researchers who studied source credibility was Carl Hovland at Yale University. As I wrote this a search in CMMC turned up only one article related to him, and it only referred to him, it was not written by him. But when I used the PsychInfo database it brought up forty-three articles for which he was the author. Another problem with relying on the Internet is that even if you use a database that gives you access to full-text articles those articles may not go back as far as would be useful to you. If you are studying a topic with literature more than a few years old you may still need to go to the library and look at paper copies of journals or order them through interlibrary loan to do a good literature review. The same PsychInfo search mentioned in the previous paragraph went back as far as 1956, which is pretty good for that particular source. Some journals, though, do not go back that far on-line, so you may have to actually go to the physical library for some of your sources. In addition, some topics may have excellent journal articles that were written even earlier and that are not yet available digitally. Step 3: Develop A Research Question A research question (RQ) is a question that your research is meant to answer and it gives you general guidance for the research project. You may need to alter it several times as you plan the research to make it more or less specific. It could start as something like, How do romantic couples manage conflicting schedules? and later be transformed to something like, Do couples that have been trained to use Gibbs supportive communication behaviors report better relationship satisfaction than those who have not received such training? (Which type of research would you need to do to answer that question?)

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John Reinard (1998) of CSU-Fullerton identifies five characteristics of proper research questions or problem statements for quantitative research (pp. 28-29). The characteristics have to be modified for qualitative research and rhetorical criticism, but they are still good guidelines. I expect you to follow his guidelines for this class. Reinards characteristics, with my explanations, are: 1. Research questions must be stated unambiguously. That means there must be only one reasonable interpretation of the question. 2. Except for simple descriptive studies, problem statements must include at least two variables. Variables are elements in the study that are different, or that could be different. They vary depending on what is done. In the second research question I wrote earlier, the variables are training in Gibbs supportive communication behavior and relationship satisfaction. Elements of a study that are not different are called constants. They do not vary but remain constant. If a study were conducted with only women, for example, then sex or gender is not a variable, it is a constant. Your research question may or may not include constants, but if it is a quantitative study it must contain at least two variables. This requirement does not apply to rhetorical or qualitative research. 3. Research questions must be testable. That means the question must be about something that can actually be studied. Studying it might be difficult and may need to be done indirectly but it can be empirically studied. Questions that cannot be empirically studied, such as many philosophical and religious questions, are still important; they are just not suitable as research questions. 4. Research questions must not advance value judgments. Research studies are supposed to discover factual information. Those facts may lead to value decisions, but that is not part of the research process. So an improper RQ might be, Why is it better for romantic couples to use supportive communication behaviors? One could ask, What is the outcome of romantic couples learning to use supportive communication behaviors? If the outcome is that they report more relationship satisfaction then you could argue that using the supportive communication is better, but that should not be part of the research question. 5. Research questions must be clear grammatical statements. In other words, write your questions using grammatically correct English. I suspect that Dr. Reinard got so tired of his students turning in poorly written RQs that he included this in his list, but I have no evidence of that. Whatever his motivation was, it is good advice. Creating a research question is a process of narrowing and refining. You start with a very broad question and, as you think about it more and find out what has already been done, you make it more focused and change the wording to make it more precise. Keep in mind that a single study will not discover everything about a subject, so your research question should ultimately ask about a small part of the subject. You might begin with a general question about what is associated with relational satisfaction among romantic couples and narrow it down to the effect of using supportive communication behaviors. Below are some RQs derived from published studies, to help give you an idea of what they could be. Some are fairly general, and others are more specific. How do teachers and students negotiate discipline in the classroom? How do people react to messages designed to account for illegitimate activities? What is the relationship between foot in the door techniques and pregiving in persuasion? How have women used letter writing in a social movement? What is the relationship between personal disclosure and group leadership? How do people in stressful occupations communicate to manage emotions?

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Step 4: Figure Out What Data You Need To Answer Your Question As you decide what your final research question is you can also think about what data you need to answer it. If the question calls for historical/critical research then you need artifacts and you have to decide what artifacts you need. If the question calls for a qualitative study then your data will be records of what you have observed or transcripts of interviews or both. If your question calls for quantitative research then the data will be some kind of numerical recordings of experience that you or your research team collect. As the process goes on you will probably become more specific in deciding what data you will need, so you might revise this several times. Step 5: Figure Out How To Get That Data After you have decided what data you will need you have to decide how to get that data. If you will do a rhetorical criticism you need to determine which artifacts you need and where to find them. Some contemporary rhetoric may be relatively easy to get because it is either published by major news organization, published by the rhetors themselves on the web, or may be easily obtained popular culture artifacts such as films. Other rhetoric may be more difficult to find and available only if you travel to an archive and look through the documents. In any case, you need to figure out how you will get the artifacts you need. If you will do quantitative research you need to determine what instruments you will use to obtain the quantitative data. Would some kind of written questionnaire be most appropriate? Would an orally administered survey be better? If either a questionnaire or survey is appropriate should you develop your own or is there an instrument that has already been created and tested that would work for your study? Or would it be better to directly observe people communicating and code their behavior? If so, should you use a previously established coding scheme or create your own? If you will do a qualitative study then you would have to decide what community you will study. Then you have to decide whether it would be better to directly observe the community as they communicate or to interview community members, or both. If you decide to do observations then you also need to decide whether to do participant observations or non-participant observations. If you decide to do interviews then you will decide if they will be individual interviews or focus group interviews and you will have to develop a series of initial questions that you will ask. Step 6: Make Plans To Get That Data No matter what data you want to collect it does not just spontaneously appear; you have to get it somehow. Depending on the project, you may have to consider one or more of the following: Who do you need to contact? For both quantitative and qualitative projects you need to contact people either to get permission to contact the people who you will actually study or to get them to agree to be studied. How will you administer surveys and questionnaires? Administering surveys and questionnaires for quantitative research is rarely easy and is never automatic. Who will administer them, who they will be administered to, when they will be administered, where they will be administered, how many will be administered, and how they will be administered are all questions that the researcher has to address. How will you get the artifact(s)?

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When you do rhetorical criticism you might pick artifacts that are fairly easy to obtain or you might pick some that require a lot of work to obtain. In either case you should spend some time figuring out how to do it. What treatment(s) will you use? When you do an experiment the experimental treatment may seem to be very straightforward, but you still need plan it carefully. That planning involves both what you will do to get the data you need and how you will do it to protect your human subjects. How will you get people to participate? Most people do not involve themselves in communication research as part of their daily lives, so as a researcher you have to encourage them to participate. At large research universities students in general education courses are often required to participate in a study as part of the class, but if the people you want to study are not students then you have to figure out a different way to get them to participate. Whether you want people to complete a simple questionnaire, be part of an experiment, be observed going about their daily lives, or engage in intensive interviewing you or your colleagues will need to approach them, invite them to participate, and, in some cases, try to persuade them to be involved. Consider the ethics of your plans. No matter what your study is there are ethical implications to doing it. As you make all your other plans you have to keep the ethical issues in mind to make sure that you do not violate principles of ethics. Principles of research ethics will be discussed more in a later chapter. How will you fund your study? Doing research is, in some ways, expensive. As a researcher you may need to purchase material or have it created, such as questionnaires. You may need to travel, stay at hotels, and buy food during the time you are doing the research. You may have to pay others to help you conduct your research, and you may need to offer inducements to people to participate. You may have to find a way to pay all your bills as you conduct the study and cannot work at a paying job. The funds to do all that have to come from somewhere. If the project is small you may be able to fund it yourself, but if it is larger and takes more time you may need to find a source of funding such as a grant. For some research this may be the first step, since grants are available for some purposes and not others. Whether a grant is available or not, as a researcher you should think about where the money will come from. Step 7. Make Plans To Analyze Your Data Whichever type of research you plan to do you will analyze data, and you should determine in advance how you will do that analysis. If you do a rhetorical criticism the analytic method will help you know what to look for in the artifact(s). If you do an experiment the analytic method will include the statistical tests you will use, which will help you know what your data collection instrument(s) should include. If you do a qualitative study the analytic method will help you know what to look for as you read the transcripts or notes. Since qualitative research can go in unpredicted directions you may not be as certain about your plans for analysis as you would in the other types, but that in itself is part of the plan. When you make these plans you should also consider whether they would affect any of your previous plans, and adjust those plans accordingly.

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If you are a member of a research community, such as a university, you are obligated to get the permission of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) before you can do quantitative or qualitative research involving humans. That will be discussed further in a future chapter, but it involves writing and submitting a prospectus that describes what you plan to do. The major part of the IRBs duties is to ensure that no researcher plans to do anything that will harm the people involved in the study, either physically or psychologically and that all researcher make plans to avoid doing anything that will harm people. So, the IRB may require changes in your plans and you would need to either revise your plan for the research or appeal the changes to the board. Even if you believe there is no possibility of harm to others you still must submit the prospectus and get the IRB approval before you do the research. Permission to do a rhetorical criticism is rarely required because the artifacts are already in the public domain and you will not directly expose anyone to potential harm. Step 9: Collect The Data. If you made all your plans and got the permission you need then it is time to carry out your plans and gather the data. If you are doing a rhetorical criticism you collect the artifacts or copies of the artifacts. If you are doing a quantitative study you either record observations or collect the results of surveys or questionnaires. If you are doing a qualitative study you either keep records of observations or record interviews. Step 10: Analyze The Data After you have the data you can begin analyzing it in the way you planned earlier. Rhetorical critics study the artifacts over and over, looking for elements of the theory they are applying and for patterns among those elements. Quantitative researchers apply the relevant statistical tests to the data they gathered. Qualitative researchers transcribe their notes and interview recordings, then read them over and over, looking for patterns of communication and themes in what was said. Researchers in all three traditions describe what their analysis reveals. Step 11: Draw Conclusions Drawing conclusions takes a step beyond the descriptive phase of the analysis and uses what has been found to support arguments that draw conclusions about human communication. The conclusions may simply be about ways people communicate in general, may develop new theory, may refine existing theory, or provide insights into the communication practices of a community. Step 12: Report The Findings The final step in the research process is to share your findings with others. After all, what use is the research if the researcher is the only person who knows about it? So, after planning the research, gathering the data, analyzing the data, and drawing conclusions the researcher writes an essay to present at a scholarly convention or submit to be published as a journal article. As with all essays, the research report starts with the introduction, and an important part of the introduction is an argument that the subject investigated is worthwhile. It is part of the researchers job to find evidence to support one or more reasons the subject is important. Some of the reasons you might use include: The rhetoric influenced a lot of people That is, there is evidence that the rhetoric changed the minds or behavior of a significant

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number of people. For example, studying the rhetorical implications of a very popular television program would fit within this rationale. In some cases the significant number does not have to be very large, such as when rhetoric influences votes in Congress. The rhetoric was embraced by a lot of people This means there is evidence that the rhetoric was accepted by a significant number of people, even if it did not change their minds. Studying the rhetoric of a cultural leader would be an example of this. Remember, you cannot just assert this; you need to include evidence. The rhetoric was about a significant issue There may not be evidence that the rhetoric was influential, but if it was about an important issue it may still be valuable to study. An example of this would be a study of environmental rhetoric. The rhetoric influenced history This means there is evidence that the rhetoric influenced decisions that are historically important. Studying anti-slavery rhetoric would be an example of this. A lot of people engage in the communication phenomenon If there is evidence that a large proportion of the population are involved in a particular form of communication then it could be worthwhile to study it because of what it can tell us about that communication in general. For instance, parent-child communication would fit in this rationale. Few people engage in the communication phenomenon If a small proportion of the population are involved in a particular form of communication then it could be worthwhile to study it because it is so unusual and would inform us about something that is unfamiliar. Studying the communication of students at an alternative high school would be an example of this. The study will help answer an unanswered question. In this case, previous research may have answered some questions about a phenomenon, but indicated that there are other questions yet to be answered. A research study that attempts to answer those questions would address what was not answered. The study addresses gaps in understanding communication phenomenon This is similar to answering unanswered questions, but instead of following up on what previous researchers identified as needing further study you, as the researcher, would identify what knowledge is missing based on previous studies and argue for a study to fill in those gaps. The study helps to understand an unfamiliar community Communication studies are often done with members of communities that are not familiar to the general public. They may be communities that the public is aware of but do not often come into contact with, or they may be communities that most of the public has never heard of. In any case, learning more about those communities can be interesting and useful. The study will help develop theory In this case the researcher would argue that research should be conducted to either develop a new theory or to test an existing theory. Etc. You may think of one or more additional reasons why your study ought to be conducted. When making the argument that the study is worthwhile the more solid reasons you give, the better. Do not include reasons that you cannot really support, but also do not overlook lines of reasoning just because you have already made one argument. Also, keep in mind that the more support you have for your claims the better. Do not expect that anyone will accept your assertions just because you think everyone would already agree with you. Instead, provide the evidence. For instance, do not simply assert that President Obama is known to be an excellent orator, but look for evidence such as polls and news columns that show people believe he is.

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Other parts of the essay include the literature review, the description of the method used for the study, the description of the results of the study, the conclusions drawn from those results, and the conclusion. For this class, you must include all of the parts of a final report if you do a rhetorical criticism. For the quantitative or qualitative prospectus you must include all of the parts of the final report except you describe the kind of results and conclusions you expect to find but not what they actually are, since you do not really carry out the study.

Rewrite Many Times When you write the essay, either for actual publication or for the final project in this class, you really need to rewrite it several times, improving it each time. You may think you can do it well in one try, but that is very rare. This was addressed in the writing tips for chapter two, but it is worth reiterating here. The first draft is meant to get your ideas down on paper, or in the computer memory. You will probably spend the largest amount of time writing this draft than any of the others. A bit of advice for writing the first draft: just write it; do not try to make it the perfect final product. That helps to free you up to get a lot more writing done in less time, and you will often be surprised at how well it turns out. This also helps with procrastination because all you are trying to do is get started; not finish. A second bit of advice for the first draft: create an outline first; do not try to write a good essay without planning it first. The second draft is to go through the essay to make major revisions. You might decide to significantly change where you put some paragraphs, or how you write your ideas. This might also be a time to insert more evidence or source citations. The third draft is to clarify ideas and make minor revisions. You are starting to polish your final project. Generally, it is better to put the essay aside for a couple of weeks before you start on the third draft, because you will look at it more like a new reader would, and that will help you recognize what you could clarify. This would also be a good time to have someone else read it to let you know what might be difficult to follow. The fourth draft would be a time to concentrate on improving your academic writing style. You could work to eliminate contractions, use precise wording, and express yourself succinctly. Until you get used to academic writing style you probably should not attempt to get it down in earlier drafts because it will probably slow you down. The fifth draft is the time to polish your writing and try to correct any errors you have not found earlier. As you do your earlier drafts you will probably notice some errors and correct them, but that should not be your primary focus because you have other tasks. If you try to correct all the errors that people naturally make as they write while you are trying to do other rewriting then it could slow you down so you do not accomplish your other goals. This is another good time to have someone else read your essay to proofread because it is difficult to notice your own errors since you already know what you meant to say. You should also proofread your essay at least three times yourself. As you try to correct your errors you will probably be tempted to rely on spell checking software to find all the mistakes. Do not succumb to that temptation! Spell checking software is a very helpful tool, but it is not infallible. As you work on each draft you should also save your work to your computer often. This is the

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A Beginners Guide to Communication Research Chapter 6: 12 General Steps in the Research Process kind of advice that is easy to ignore until something bad happens. Saving your drafts only takes a few seconds and can save a lot of trouble later. It is also a good idea to back up what you have on your hard drive to another drive regularly to avoid losing everything you saved over time.

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The advice above applies not only to writing a research essay but also to all other papers you write for classes or for other purposes. Another bit of advice for all classes is to print it at least one day before it is due, especially if you print on a school printer, because too often students cannot find an open computer at the last minute. If you plan to print on your own printer it is a good idea to make sure you have a fresh ink cartridge before you begin. That may seem like unnecessary advice, but it is all based either on what I have personally experienced or my students have experienced. For this class I encourage you to send an electronic copy of what you have for the final assignment about a week before it is due. That way if a disaster happens to your work I have something that can be graded, even if it is not your best final product. When doing the research process, after you have finished writing the essay you then submit it either to the editor of the journal or the appropriate convention planner. Usually convention planners either accept or refuse submissions as they are. Journal editors often require revisions prior to publication and if he/she does then you need to make revisions and submit it again. If your research is accepted for presentation at a convention then you need to go to the convention to make the presentation. Before you submit anything for a convention you should keep in mind that you are expected to make the presentation if your paper is accepted. Writing Tips 15. Avoid starting sentences with "It." because there is no referent.

It can often be tempting to begin sentences with it because we are so used to doing so. It is not even grammatically incorrect to begin sentences with it. It is more casual writing style to start sentences with it, though, so you should try to avoid doing it in your formal writing. Yes, I violated this principle on purpose in the previous paragraph. I could change the paragraph in the following way to avoid the violation: We are so used to beginning sentences with it that doing so can be very tempting. Beginning sentences with it is not even grammatically incorrect. Starting sentences with it is a more casual writing style, though, so you should try to avoid doing it in formal writing. The reason you should not begin sentences with it is because there is no referent at that point, so you force the reader to figure out what it refers to. Most of the time readers do a pretty good job of figuring that out, but the less you make them do it the easier you make it to read your writing. 16. ALWAYS introduce quotations.

Whenever there is a quotation the reader needs to know from whom it comes in order to make proper sense of it. While you may think the citation is the way to let the reader know, that is an awkward way to attain the objective and often is more confusing. This means that you should lead into every quotation with the name of the person quoted instead of presenting the quotation and then saying whom the source is. If you use APA style you should only use the last name of the source if it comes from published research, but use the complete name if the source is a public figure. Sometimes you will have to use your judgment about which your source is. If you use MLA style you should use the sources complete name the first time, then the last name after that.

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This principle does not apply if you use a quotation to begin your essay. Another case in which this principle does not apply is if you start sections of your essay with quotations. If you do start some sections of your essay with quotations then you should be sure to start all sections with quotations to be consistent. Also, be sure to indicate whom the quotation came from immediately after the quotation in both cases. All of the above refers to a source with a single author. If the source has multiple authors then you should include all of them, unless there are too many. When there are a lot of authors use the same principles for introducing quotations as you do for listing names in the references and works cited. For APA, if there are two authors us both authors names every time you cite the source. If there are three to five authors name all of them the first time (last names only), and after that name the first author and use et al. If there are more than five authors use the first author and et al. all the time. For MLA, if there are two authors list both of them. If there are more than two either use et al. after the first author or list all the authors. For both APA and MLA style there are other principles for naming authors in the text and in citations, so be sure to check them. Also, the principles for identifying the sources of ideas you summarize are the same as those for direct quotations. When in doubt, say whom the ideas come from. Most students do not identify sources nearly as often as they should, so it is very unlikely that you will do it too often, and excusable if you do.

References Reinard, J. (1998) Introduction to communication research. 2nd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

copyright 2010 Jay VerLinden