Over 52% of Instructors Recommend Starting a Research Paper the Day It Is Assigned, Yet Only 17% of Students Report Doing So, Finds New Questia.com Survey

CHICAGO, Jan. 31, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Questia (www.questia.com), the premier online research and paper-writing tool for students, today announced the release of its interactive research tutorials designed to improve students' abilities to write even better research papers faster.

Instructors suggest 10 hours or more to complete the final paper, recognizing the many steps involved to craft an effective research paper. For their part students know that writing a research paper can be overwhelming, taking entire days, weeks or months to complete. Yet while over 52% of college instructors recommend starting a research paper the day it is assigned, only 17% of students report doing so.

The reasons for this disconnect vary. Many of the skills required to write an effective research paper are new to students, who often enter college level courses ill-prepared to take on an extended research assignment.   Sound academic writing requires that students understand how to avoid plagiarism, how to integrate sources seamlessly, and how to correctly cite sources, yet teaching the fundamentals of the research process takes focus away from the main course objectives in most courses.  Students face a process that can be unfamiliar or daunting, and do not plan accordingly.

Questia's brand new tutorials teach the research process in a completely digital, multi-modal format including 50 videos, 50 learning activities, and 500 quiz questions.   When students dive into Questia's wide range of research tutorials, they'll find complete sets of faculty-developed instructional videos, example lessons and quizzes to master every step of the paper-writing process.  Combined with an online library of more than 75,000 books, 9 million articles and an unmatched set of research tools, Questia now presents a unique and powerful set of solutions to the problems students and instructors face when working on a research project.

A sampling of Questia's comprehensive research tutorials include:

• Planning a Paper: Finding the right topic, developing a point of view, and organizing thoughts and sources in a coherent way is crucial. This tutorial helps students start off on the right foot.
• Evaluating Sources: This tutorial helps students learn to evaluate print and Web sources by deciding whether a source is credible, safe to use and highly relevant to their research topic.
• Avoiding Plagiarism: The difference between paraphrasing and plagiarizing is often misunderstood. This tutorial teaches students when and how to quote directly, paraphrase passages or, simply summarize the main points.
• Quoting Sources: Quality research assignments include citing an array of quality sources. Students can learn how to effectively quote sources and follow the correct in-text citation.
• Working with Documentation Styles: With differences between in-text citations, bibliographies and quotation styles, it's no easy feat to master all writing style guidelines. This tutorial introduces students to MLA, APA, and Chicago documentation styles, as well as the features that all citation styles have in common.

Questia has always saved students valuable time on research papers and projects, and now its research tutorials can serve as students' own private tutor, helping them strengthen their grasp of research and writing. If not already a member, students may sign up for a free one-day trial at Questia.com and start writing better research papers faster. Instructors may receive more information and a demonstration from their Cengage Learning representative.

About Cengage Learning and Questia
Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, software and services company serving the academic, professional and library markets worldwide. Questia, part of Cengage Learning, is the Web's premier online collection of copyrighted scholarly books, academic journals and research periodicals for students and includes integrated tools for note taking, organizing research, citing sources, creating footnotes and building bibliographies to help students write better research papers faster. For more information, visit www.cengage.com or www.questia.com.

SOURCE Cengage Learning