You’ve probably researched at least one topic just to satisfy your own curiosity about something. Researching a topic for fun can lead you in all kinds of directions and to a wide variety of sources—some worth reading, some not. When you research a topic for a school project, though, there’s a specific process that you should follow—a set of recommended steps that will help you do your best work. Watch the video to learn more about the standard research process.
Researching a topic and writing a report can seem like a daunting experience. So how do you it? The same way you might eat an elephant—one bite . . . or, uh, step at a time! There are more steps required to write a research paper than most other kinds of writing, but many of the steps are small ones.
First, choose a topic that interests you. For example, you might be interested in World War II, poetry, or . . . elephants. World War II would make an excellent topic for a history essay, poetry works well for English class, and elephants might be just the topic for a science report.
Now narrow your topic. After all, writing everything about elephants would take up an entire book, and you only need enough information for 3 to 5 pages.
Next, brainstorm! Make a list of details or ways of thinking about your topic—these could become the subtopics—or section headers—in your report or essay.
Once you have a pretty good list, generate a set of research questions based on those details. Research questions should ask things that you will try to find out during your research.
Next, find, evaluate, and select sources that should be able to help you answer your research questions. As you gather sources, note publication information, such as URLs, authors’ names, and publication dates, for each source.
When you think you have enough sources to answer your research questions, summarize your sources in a way that highlights the most important information.
Next, review all of your summaries, and use what you’ve learned about your topic to create a thesis statement that answers at least one of your main research questions.
Make an outline that includes your thesis statement and supporting details. The, write your rough draft by converting the parts of your outline into sentences and paragraphs.
Next you’ll want to get feedback on your rough draft—ask at least two people to read it and provide feedback. Then, revise your rough draft based on the feedback you received.
For written reports, you should create a works cited page listing all the resources you used.
Finally, edit your essay or report one last time, and submit your project.
If you stick to your schedule and follow these steps, you’ll have a research project you can be proud of.
Question
According to the video, what role do research questions play in the research process?
