Research

What Don’t You Know?

Copying permitted

Research is about

exploration, discovery, and

curiosity.

Copying permitted

Research is all about the questions

• Your questions

• Your readers’ questions

• Your questions that lead to more questions

Copying permitted

Creating Questions

• What do you want to know more about?

(If you think “nothing,” then think about what you like to do now, what you want to do in the future, what’s going on in the news or

in your world.)

• What matters to you and your future?

Copying permitted

Searching is a big part of

researching.

Copying permitted

Where do you search?

• Where are you going to look?

• What resources are available to you?

• How are you going to keep the information you collect?

Copying permitted

Focus

You want to have a big question to answer.

What are the causes of the civil war?

You may even take on a question that will appear to be persuasive. Research

papers, with all their evidence, may be persuasive.

Is cloning helping create medical cures?Copying permitted

Be flexible.

Sometimes your search for information will take you to a place you didn’t expect.

Copying permitted

Invitation to Read

• Read the world

• What do you care about?

Copying permitted

Invitation to Read

• Look at the local and national news. • Read magazines and the papers. • What do you want to know more about?• Skim through your history, science,

literature, and math books. Is there something you studied or are going to study that you want to know more about?

Copying permitted

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is often a problem with research papers.

Plagiarism is copying, cutting, or pasting text that are someone else’s words and

acting like they are your words.

Copying permitted

Avoiding Plagiarism

• Cite your sources when using quotations.

• Use your own words to summarize information. Still cite your sources.

Copying permitted

Invitation to Write• Find a partner and read over some information

in one of your texts—perhaps on where to find information while researching.

• Write three sentences in your own words that summarize what you’ve read. Make sure that you significantly change the writing. Changing a few words is not enough.

• Share your summary sentences with the class and analyze with your teacher if your summary sentences are considered plagiarism.

Copying permitted