| Term | Definition |
| Academic research | inquiry or examination that occurs in an academic setting |
| Action research | studies undertaken by practitioners in schools that address an actual problem or issue in the school or classroom |
| Argument | an amiable conversation in which you and your imagined readers reason together to solve a problem whose solution they don't yet accept |
| Claim | any sentence that asserts something that may be true or false and so needs support (example - The world's temperature is rising.). |
| Notes-bibliography style | a citation style used widely in the humanities and in some social sciences; also known as MLA style |
| Parenthetical citations-reference list style | a citation style used in most social and natural sciences; also known as APA style |
| Peer-reviewed | evaluation of a person's work or performance by a group of people in the same occupation, profession, or industry |
| Plagiarism | not giving credit to an original source of an idea or writing |
| Primary source | in analytical research, a document or the testimony of an eyewitness to an event; in reviewing literature, studies with original data |
| Quantitative research | a research paradigm in which objective data are gathered and analyzed numerically. |
| Secondary source | In historical research, documents and testimonies of individuals who did not actually observe or participate in the event being studied; in literature reviews, a summary of primary sources |
| Qualitative research | a type of research that refers to in-depth study using face-to-face or observation techniques to collect data from people in their natural setting |
| Tertiary source | sources that are based on secondary sources; usually written for non-specialists or the general population |
| Warrant | a statement or principle claiming that a general set of circumstances predictably allows us to draw a general consequence |
| Ethics | from the Greek word ethos; means either individual character, good or bad, or shared custom in a community |