The way I write a paper

Since we are all or soon all will be writing our final papers for this course, I thought I'd share some of what I wrote about in my "On my writing" paper.

The papers I write are always directly inspired by the texts the paper is based on. My technique doesn't work quite as well for research papers, but I believe within the frame of the course and what we have read that it could.

When reading the book or material a paper is to be based off of, I note passages, sentences and phrases that stand out to me, regardless of their relevance to anything; if I find it interesting, I mark it. Afterwards, I look at every quote I've marked, find a common element among most of them, and turn that similarity into a thesis. For example, last year I had to write a paper on Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I found that many of the passages I had liked the most had strong religious undertones which covered ideas from many different belief systems, and so that was the base for my thesis.

I'd be interested in learning what other students' techniques are! Especially for research papers! :)