Research and Argumentation Flashcards

Grade 12 · English · Flashcards

12 flashcards on the essential skills and vocabulary of academic research and argumentation.

Flashcards

Thesis statement: A specific, contestable claim that the rest of a paper argues and supports with evidence.
Primary source: Original firsthand material: a literary text, historical document, interview, or data set.
Secondary source: A work analyzing or interpreting primary sources — scholarly articles, biographies, critical essays.
Tertiary source: A source that compiles or summarizes secondary sources — encyclopedias, databases, Wikipedia.
Citation: Formal acknowledgment of a source, formatted per a style guide (MLA, APA, Chicago).
MLA format: Humanities citation style: in-text as (Author page), list as Works Cited.
APA format: Social sciences citation style: in-text as (Author, year), list as References.
Counterargument: An opposing view raised and then refuted in an argument to demonstrate intellectual honesty.
Evidence integration: The three-step process: introduce the source, present the evidence, analyze how it supports the claim.
Plagiarism: Using another's words or ideas without proper attribution — a serious academic integrity violation.
Peer-reviewed source: An academic article evaluated by expert reviewers before publication — the gold standard for academic research.
Paraphrase: Restating a source's ideas in your own words — still requires a citation even though no quotation marks are used.