Research papers...are they not all just one big quote from other sources?

Seems like someone is struggling

Nah been out for years also have my JD. Even in my practice now, briefs are simply citing case law and intertwining them with the facts of your case.

The "research papers" you write in college are, yes. Although you should provide some of your own original synthesis of and/or commentary on the material, the papers are largely drawn from things other people have written.

Real research papers -- as in the ones that scientists and social scientists write -- report empirical results from an original study. Thus, real research papers contribute some form of new knowledge, however small that contribution may be.

quote:

---

Any one else think this to be a waste of time?

---

Also, it is not a waste of time because writing these papers develops your ability to understand, synthesize, and analyze existing ideas. These are skills that every college graduate should have, regardless of your major.

quote:

---

So you are saying that you your undergrad and grad papers were an original thought of your own that no one had ever written on? I find that hard to believe.

---

No, just saying I never had an issue worrying about plagiarizing.

I got my BSN all online(took me around 18 months). I wrote papers pretty much once a week or every other week.

Depending on the subject, a research paper can be mostly quotes and your interpretation of those findings. Colleges don't expect you to reinvent the wheel on many of these topics. Theyre testing whether you can find the information that's already out there, and whether you understand what that information means.

quote:

---

Unless you do original research, then basically you are tasked with stating and supporting an opinion.

---

It more so teaches students how to conduct inquiry into an exigent topic. It's about identifying the genre conventions of a discourse community and putting together a sophisticated argument that should push the conversation forward.

Kenneth Burke used this metaphor to explain academic arguments:

quote:

---

Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.

---

While undergraduates are mostly only practicing, that practice develops skills that can contribute to their majors, graduate school work, and in professionalizing in their field. College is not supposed to be job training, and the research paper is a necessary activity for activating higher order thinking skills.

Now if you want to argue that traditional essay form (pure prose, citation style guide with works cited page) is outdated, I'm all ears. Multimodal compositions probably should dominate the work that college students are doing.

quote:

---

Real research papers -- as in the ones that scientists and social scientists write -- report empirical results from an original study. Thus, real research papers contribute some form of new knowledge, however small that contribution may be.

---

Hell, quite a few published papers I've read recently are just a meta-analysis of other studies.