In your college career, you will be assigned many research papers that ask you to take a point of view on a topic and defend your point of view by citing a variety of different kinds of sources. Your professor will discuss his/her expectations for the paper, and give you some basic pointers about how to find and select good sources. However, before you dive in, you should consider your own expectations about research and assess your research habits, skills, and knowledge. Reading this web comic and completing the reflective essay questions will help you understand your own research behaviors and identify and correct areas of weakness before you begin researching a paper.

Instructions

1. Read the comic, The Researchers Begins! (Click the link at the bottom of each image to move to the next page. The comic is 11 pages long.)
2. Access the writing assignment via Google forms.
   
3. Answer all questions in the space provided. Answers should be at least three sentences each and should indicate that you have thought about how the events in the comic relate to your own life and behavior as a student.
4. Click “Submit” at the bottom of the page to submit your completed assignment.

Successful responses to essay questions will display the following qualities:

• Student demonstrates that he/she has read the comic carefully and in its entirety by referring to specific characters, events, dialog, images, etc. in his/her responses;
• Student reflects on his/her own research process by citing specific examples from past research projects or experiences;
• Student uses what they learn from the comic to consider how they would like to grow as a student and a researcher, being as specific as possible (“I would like to get better at doing research” is not a specific response; “I would like to develop strategies for evaluating the reliability of a website” is a specific response);
• Student uses complete sentences, correct grammar, and appropriate syntax in responding to each question.

Late assignments will be accepted only at the discretion of your professor. Please refer to your syllabus for late policies.