HOW TO RESEARCH

The Research Process: explained in 6 steps

Throughout high school and college, you will be asked to complete research assignments for many of your classes. Your final product might be a paper, a project, or an oral presentation. This guide offers a 6-step process for acquiring and organizing information for a research assignment, with emphasis on writing a paper.

Step 1 - Choose a Topic

The ability to develop a good research topic is an important skill for high school and college students alike. Your instructor may assign you a specific topic or allow you to choose your own.

a) Brainstorm ideas. What interests you? Do you have a strong opinion about a social or political issue? Is there a topic you’d like to learn more about?

b) Gather background information. Read general information on the topics you are considering. Make sure the topic you choose is manageable and that information is available. Make note of the terms (or subject tags) you encounter.

c) Formulate questions. Pose questions to yourself that will give your research direction. This is a good time to focus your topic. For example, topics such as “climate change” and “the environment” are too broad. But if you pose the question, “What are the primary causes of climate change?” you will get more focused. You can also limit a topic by geographical region, population group, or time frame.

d) Generate keywords. Use your questions to make a list of searchable keywords. Make a list of synonyms as well as related broader and narrower search terms. Example: The keyword or term in the example question is 'climate change'. Synonyms would be 'greenhouse effect' or 'global warming' and a related term might be 'ozone depletion'.

Step 2 - Draft a Thesis Statement

a) Determine the subject you will explore in your project or paper. Your thesis statement will depend on your topic and the type of research paper you intend to write.

There are three basic types of research papers:

An analytical paper breaks down an issue and evaluates it.
An expository paper teaches or illuminates a point.
A persuasive (or argumentative) paper makes a claim and backs it up with evidence.

b) Draft your thesis statement once you’ve determined the purpose of your paper. The thesis statement focuses your idea into one or two sentences and typically appears in the introduction of your paper. Ask your classroom teacher for examples and other direct guidance to help you write your own.

Make sure your thesis statement follows these four guidelines:

It establishes your position on a topic and gives the reader a sense of direction — like a road map.
It guides your writing, helping you keep your argument and/or analysis focused.
It is an assertion, not a statement of fact or observation. (However, you may use facts in your paper to support your thesis.)
It is debatable. Someone should be able to argue an opposing position or support your assertions.

c) Answer the question you formulated in Step 1c and make the answer your thesis statement.

Examples:

Question: What are the primary causes of climate change?

Thesis: Climate change is caused by both naturally occurring events and human activities.

Question: Why is the Mississippi River so important in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn?

Thesis: The river comes to symbolize both division and progress, as it separates our characters and country while still providing the best chance for Huck and Jim to get to know one another. Note: Writing a thesis statement can be tricky. It’s okay to modify your topic or thesis statement during the research process. You may find too much information and need to narrow your focus, or too little and need to broaden your focus.

Step 3 - Identify Your Information Resources

a) Decide on your best resources. Choose the materials that are going to work best for your paper. Options include online research databases such as those offered by EBSCO (for example, Explora) as well as books, e-books, reference books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, magazines, newspapers, audio and video files, and websites you find using search engines. Note: EBSCO databases include all the resource options covered above except for search engines. Ask your librarian for login information.

b) List pros and cons. Determine the advantages and disadvantages of your resource choices.

Which include the most information?
Which are the most accurate?
Which are easiest to use?
Which are fastest?

Note: Search engines can be simple to use, but results often lack accuracy, and finding reputable sources can be difficult and time consuming. But it is entirely worth the extra time to ensure you are using truthful information!

Step 4 - Search for Relevant Sources

a) Strategize. Use the keywords you identified in Step 1d to build your search strategy. Library databases offer several ways to locate relevant information.

b) Filter results. Use filters on the search results page to further narrow records by source type, subject, publication name or publication date range.

c) Preview results. Click the preview icon to view details about the search result. Save any relevant records to your Google Drive. (You may later choose not to use some of the records you collect, and that’s okay!)

Step 5 - Evaluate & Organize Your Information

a) Review materials. Read, watch and/or listen to everything you’ve collected.

Will it help you to complete your tasks?
Does your research answer all or most of your questions?
Will your research allow you to attain your goals and prove the points in your thesis statement?

Note: If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” you may need to do more research, review your information to find more answers, or weed out information that will not be helpful.

b) Take good notes. If you use index cards, record the source of the information on each card. Be careful not to copy phrases or sentences word-for-word unless you want to capture a direct quote (and remember to put quotation marks around it!). At the bottom of this webpage, there is dropdown click-choice for "Taking and Organizing Notes."

c) Create an outline. Once you have thoroughly evaluated all your sources, it’s time to organize and repackage your notes in the form of an outline.

Step 6 - Write Your Research Paper

a) Write a rough draft. Using your outline as a guide, write a first draft of your paper, without worrying about sentence structure or grammar rules yet. Just make sure your ideas follow a logical progression. Use a graphic organizer, perhaps directly from your teacher, to help you organize your essay.

b) Revise your draft. Review the draft on your own, revising as needed, and then ask someone you trust to help you make additional edits. A second pair of eyes is invaluable.

c) Build a list of references. EBSCO’s Cite feature can help. However, sometimes databases return citations with errors in capitalization or punctuation, so double check each citation to make sure everything is correct. Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab offers excellent research and citation resources.

d) Know the difference. A Works Cited and a Bibliography are two different things. A Bibliography is a list of all sources you consulted, including those you did not end up referencing in your paper. A Works Cited is a list of only the sources you reference in your paper. Usually, your teacher will request that you submit a Works Cited with your research.

e) Format your paper. Use appropriate style guidelines, such as MLA, to format your paper. These guidelines cover margins, spacing, cover pages, and page headers and footers. If you carefully followed the steps in this process, you have already improved your odds of success!

References

How to select a research topic. (2018) Thompson Library, University of Michigan-Flint. Retrieved from https://www.umflint.edu/library/how-select-research-topic

Research and citation resources. (2018). Purdue Online Writing Lab, Purdue University. Retrieved from https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/resources.html

Types of Sources

#1. Decide which types of resources and the range of resources which will best meet your needs.

Print (paper and online): Books, encyclopedias, magazines, professional journals, primary sources such as diaries, newspapers, personal journals, maps, photographs.
Human sources: Practitioners and researchers such as doctors, teachers, university professors, other professionals and any other expert in the field of study for the subject you are researching. Laymen (ordinary people) can be useful when you are conducting a survey, just needing opinions, or if you are finding oral history of an area. You may be a resource if you are conducting an experiment or making observations. Find people at the following places: institutions of higher education, businesses, professional agencies such as law and accounting offices, nonprofit organizations such as Red Cross and United Way, service agencies such as hospitals, clinics, police stations, and so forth.
Primary sources: Sources that were written as a first hand account; they are original creations. Examples: newspapers, diaries, letters, speeches, interviews, scientific experiments, research results, artistic creations like art or music.
Secondary sources: Sources that are second hand accounts; they have the benefit of hindsight and/or are original creations using primary sources as references. Examples: newspapers, magazine articles, biographies, journal articles, literary criticism, nonfiction books.
Tertiary sources: Reference works that may lead you to primary or secondary resources. Often, these sources do not qualify for academic research purposes but are very helpful in getting background information and facts. Examples: dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses, bibliographies.

#2. Choose the most credible sources.

How do you know which are best? Here is a question to consider:

"Which sources would the leading academic professionals (researchers and university professors) use?" (hint: probably not a general Google search)

Answer: Search library databases for the most credible sources: DATABASES & RESEARCH REFERENCE RESOURCES

Finding Reliable Sources

Determining the Credibility of a Source:

credibility (noun): The trustworthiness or reliability of something

One of the easiest ways to ensure that your sources are credible is to stay away from basic Google internet searches. Anyone can publish anything on the internet, so if you're not careful, you can be partly responsible for sharing misinformation or disinformation. This video from Factcheck.org will give you some strategies to help identify news that is not true. This 5-minute video will show you some examples of dramatic headlines that are incorrect; see whether you can spot the problems. (Ignore the ads, of course.)

Use the provided databases that SSD students have access to (DATABASES & RESEARCH REFERENCE SITES) and these additional free academic search engines.

But, if you must venture out into the world of unregulated internet searching, make sure to run your source through these few "tests."

Evaluating Online Sources for Credibility (YouTube video explanation)
Lateral Reading (YouTube video explanation) – explains how to verify an online source while you are reading / researching. And here's another video explanation.

Disinformation, Misinformation, and Media Literacy:

Boston Public Library - this website explains each of these topics with examples and solutions!

Search Tips

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators are words (or, and, not) used to connect search terms to expand (or) or narrow (and, not) a search within a database to locate relevant information. Boolean operators are also called logical operators or connectors.

For example:

	If you search with these connector words:	This is how the system searches:
	women OR females	OR retrieves records that contain any of the search terms. It expands the search. Therefore, use "OR" in between terms that have the same meaning (synonyms) or equal value to the search.
	women AND media	AND retrieves records that contain all of the search terms. It narrows or limits the search. Therefore, use "AND" in between terms that are required to make the search specific.
	image NOT weight	NOT eliminates records that contain a search term. It narrows or limits the search. Therefore, use "NOT" in front of a term to ensure that the search will not include that term. Warning: Some databases use "and not" instead of "not." Check the database 'help screen' to know for sure.

Truncation

Most databases allow for a symbol to be used at the end of a word to retrieve variant endings of that word. This is known as truncation.

For example:
bank* will retrieve: bank or banks or banking or banker or bankruptcy, etc.

Warning: Truncating after too few letters will retrieve terms that are not relevant.

For example:
cat* will also retrieve cataclysm, catacomb, catalepsy, catalog, etc.
It's best to use the boolean operator "OR" in these instances (like: cat OR cats).

Wild Cards

Some databases allow for wild cards to be embedded within a word to replace a single character. For instance, in EBSCO and Infotrac, you can also use the question mark (?) within a word to replace a character.

For example:

wom?n will retrieve woman or women

**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****

Work Cited

"Boolean Searching and Truncation.” CSUN University Library, 2009, https://library.csun.edu/ResearchAssistance/BooleanSearching.