The Bedford Researcher Chapter 1: Summary and Discussion

The first chapter in The Bedford Researcher provides a great outline of each step of the writing process and useful tips on how to format a writing project based on the target audience. The chapter discusses how to begin a writing project, covering everything from selecting a topic to refining that topic using freewriting, looping and clustering tools. Palmquist provides tips on how to develop a position and convey the main point once the research question has been identified. A sample research project timeline is included in the chapter as well as points on how to effectively manage time.

The first chapter of the text relates to the current topics of lecture this week. We have been reviewing the first step of the writing process: how to select a topic. The text included links to samples of featured writers; the variety of the writing project topics opened my mind to many ideas. I have a lot of topics that I’d like to write about and narrowing it down has been challenging. The syllabi guidelines for the research paper helped me focus on what topic would enable to meet the bibliography requirements. I changed my approach so that I would be able to find relevant peer reviewed articles of 8 pages or more on my topic with greater ease.