Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 5: Formulating Research Questions
• Part 2 of 5: Study Online
• Part 3 of 5: Using the Library
• Part 4 of 5: Conducting Initial Research
• Part 5 of 5: Organizing Research

Learning how to effectively search for sources of information on the Internet and in the library should not be difficult. Once you learn how to create effective research questions, plan your actions, and explore your options, you can start using good sources to explore and support your research capabilities. See Step 1 for more information.

Steps

Part 1 of 5: Formulating Research Questions

1. 1 Learn about the different types of research you can do. Research takes place at any time by actively seeking information on a specific topic. You can research a topic that you are not familiar with, as well as present the evidence you make in a presentation or research essay. Research can be collected by collecting your own data, reading online, or by using previous research projects to focus your efforts.
   • Research work is done when you read on the Internet, you get a superficial understanding of the topic. Let's say you've researched obesity in the United States. To research a topic, you can start by searching on Google, reading the Wikipedia page, and other web resources to get a better understanding of the topic. How is obesity in the United States? What steps are being taken in this regard? What other subjects are related to this topic? Health and Fitness? Fast food? What interests you next in your research? In this kind of research, you are looking for facts.
   • Supportive research happens when you find these arguments in academic sources. What could it be? Anything that has been published, be it journals, books, or the online version of a database of academic scientific journals. In this kind of research, you are looking for more facts. You are looking for opinions and arguments of various kinds that are relevant to your topic that you can use to form an opinion and argue for your own conclusions.
2. 2 Write down what you don't recognize. After you've studied a topic a few times, there is still much you may not know, and this is what you can use to guide your research by forming questions.Start asking a lot of questions and write them down. How do people feel about the obesity epidemic, and what do they refer to? When did it start? Where? What are some of the possible reasons for the problem?
3. 3 Take an interest in controversies and conversations on the topic. Each topic has a question that is at stake. Something controversial, on a controversial topic, and that's what you want to take the time to study it. The narrower the topic, the better.
   • The topic of obesity in the United States may be too big. Look at your own community, state, or region. What are the statistics here? How do they compare with other regions? What conclusions can be drawn from this? Why? If you ask and answer these questions, you are well prepared for your research topic.
   • Questions don't really provide good research topics because there is nothing to research, just fact to search. A good research question, for example, would not be "how many people died of obesity?" But "how can obesity kill?"
4. 4 Ask a research question. After you've researched your topic online and possibly in print, you should come up with a specific question to help support your research.
   • "What policies and attitudes led to the soaring rise in obesity in Indiana during the mid-90s?" - this will be a great topic for research. This is a specific question in terms of location, contradiction and topic. This is what you can prove.
5. 5 Let research guide your arguments, not the other way around. We all have strong opinions on topics, especially controversial ones. It can be tempting only from the point of view of finding a source that will test your opinion or will simplify the topic rather than complicate it. When you do your research, look for different opinions, arguments and positions and allow yourself to collect the strongest research possible, not just the arguments you want to hear.

Part 2 of 5: Study Online

1. 1 Use the Internet for exploratory research. Depending on your topic, there can be a wealth of information or utopian opinions on the Internet with a flood of comments. This may be the fastest information, but it can be difficult to tell the difference between good sources and malicious ones.
   • Government websites (the ones ending in .gov) are a good source of data and definitions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, for example, has a lot of good data on obesity in the United States, how the disease affects specific populations and the extent of disease by region.
   • Nonprofit websites that end in .org can also be a good source of opinions. Typically, organizations will have an “agenda” and provide a variety of information to strengthen their position. This can be good for aiding your research, but it can also generate a fair amount of spam on these issues.
   • Blogs and message boards can be handy for getting meaningful opinions from people and are good for coming up with ideas for questions you might ask yourself, but they're not good for a source of support. They are not very good for quotes, in other words.
2. 2 Use the Internet to define the meanings of terms. Is obesity a disease? What do we mean by calling it an "epidemic"? These terms can and should be looked up quickly online. As you define your terms and become more knowledgeable about the topic, you become an amateur expert on it, in fact, you will be more informed when you get to the much more technical kinds of sources that you will need to use to support your research.
3. 3 Use Wikipedia as a resource, but not as a source. One of the advantages of wikis (like WikiHow!) Is that the sources for their information are available at the bottom of the page, so you can use them for review. They are often better sources of information than the wiki itself, and the organization of the page allows you to use them as a summary of information from those sources, rather than a source for it.
4. 4 Find meaningful articles and opinions. When you read on the Internet, look for mixed information in the form of statistics and opinions. It isn't necessarily helpful to have a blog full of someone's HGH conspiracies in school breakfasts to make kids obese, but there might be something out there to inspire you. What is the School Lunch Agreement? What research has been done? Do more research and find a more substantial page with similar information.

Part 3 of 5: Using the Library

1. 1 Talk to the librarian. Books are not the most useful source of information in libraries. Librarians often sit idly by while students grapple with the computer, delving into a complex swamp of bad information and scarce resources. Talk to them! They are here to help you.
   • Bring your research question and any research you have done up to this point, as well as any special assignments or project descriptions you have with you. If you are doing research on paper, bring an appointment sheet.
   • Ask the Research Libraries Reception to make an appointment with a librarian in a specific area. These meetings are usually very helpful. You will not waste time trying to negotiate with the library's complex databases, and you will be sure that the information you find will be useful for your project.
2. 2 Explore books, magazines and databases. In the library, you have more information and you will know what to do with it. Try to find only the information that is most relevant to your topic. If you're worried about not finding good sources, optimize your search terms and search again.
   • The books are obviously made for good overviews on topics. If you are researching obesity, you will be able to find research data, expertise, and opinions on books on the topic.
   • Regular and scientific journals will provide you with more specialized and technical questions, usually of a slightly shorter length. They will be easier to form an opinion and harder to dry statistics.
   • Most university libraries use JSTOR, or some other variant of the academic database, that contains research papers on a topic. It can be quite difficult to research databases for negotiation, so ask your librarian for help if you are unsure of what you can do.
3. 3 Try mixed search criteria. This can be frustrating when you first start looking for information in the library that is directly related to your topic. Learn to seek effectively and be diligent, and your efforts will pay off in the long run. Modify your search terms by quoting specific searches that you want to move forward with. If you were looking for information about obesity in terms of the school lunch program, you can search like this:
   • "obesity"
   • "obesity", "school lunch"
   • "school lunch"
   • "junk food in schools"
   • "Indiana obesity"
   • "Indiana School Lunches"
   • "weight epidemic"
   • "obesity epidemic"
4. 4 Don't read every word. Learn to read quickly and skim through important information effectively, because often the difference between smooth research on a project and frustration can be the result of your hard work. If you are delving into a really difficult technical topic, a lot of research can be dry and downright boring. Learning how to quickly work with a source will make your job much easier.
   • Check out the abstract if there is only one source, or read the introduction to the source to make sure the topic is right for you. If it seems superficial, put the source back and forget about it. You do not do research to supplement your bibliography, you do it to support your arguments and research a topic.
   • If you find a good source, skip the text and read the summary. Most of the "meat" of technical sources describes the research itself, while you mainly need the conclusions of the argument itself. Often, you can finish reading after a few paragraphs of 15 or 20 pages.
   • If the source provides you with good information, read the article in more detail to get an idea of ​​the arguments and evidence. Use the author's own research, look for more sources.
5. 5 Make notes so you can find the information you need later. There is nothing worse than going back to the written phase of a research project and failing to find a specific quote or statistic in the pile of material you've gathered. Plan your work during the research process and make notes carefully so you can come back to them later.
   • Use maps and write specific encodings on the back and bibliographic information (title, author, publication description, and URL) on the other side of the map.
6. 6 Don't overload yourself with sources. A good day at the library doesn't necessarily mean stacking a mountain of 500-page books that you'll never read. Smart research is about taking notes on the most important pieces of information, using a reasonable number of sources to frame your arguments and serve your arguments.
   • Some students think that the more sources, the better their thesis. This is wrong. Ideally, you want the balance of "your" voice - that means research and your voice are your arguments. A good research project uses research to form and sustain arguments so as not to act like a dummy speaker by repeating all the information you read.

Part 4 of 5: Conducting Initial Research

1. 1 Do primary research for local or subjective subjects if the project calls for it. Some topics and projects will call for primary research, which means that you will collect the data yourself. If you have a truly localized topic, such as obesity at your university, you might want to consider creating a short survey or other way to analyze data of interest to your project.
2. 2 Find the sample size that will work for you. No surveys or questionnaires will reach all people. How much is enough to get a good understanding of the problem? Does that mean anything if you collect opinions on obesity from 20 guys in the locker room? On your dorm floor? Have 300 people at a football match?
   • Be aware of bias. Strive to mix in the quality of the interviewees both men and women of different ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, and places of birth.
3. 3 Decide how you will collect your data. A questionnaire is the best and most effective way to collect data, but it may not be particularly applicable to your topic.
   • If you're interested in eating habits and junk food in canteens, watch it a few days a week and count the number of students who are ditching full meals in favor of desserts, sodas, or candy. Stick to your math.
   • An interview can be a good option if you have access to experts or other parties directly involved in your research topic.If you would like to know about school lunches, talk to canteen workers, the school leader, or other people who may be involved. Let them know what you are researching and explain to them the purpose of the project before talking to them.
4. 4 Collect your research. After you have chosen a method for collecting and disseminating information, observed or conducted your interviews, collect your research. Analyze them and summarize the results so that you can use them for your research.
   • If your research hypothesis ends up being wrong, don't worry. This in itself can be a good source of information to represent in a project. In this way, you show your commitment to finding out the "truth" about the topic.

Part 5 of 5: Organizing Research

1. 1 Assess your sources. Once you've collected your research, identify the most compelling arguments and sources and use them as a starting point for your own argument. If you find that neighborhoods with schools that have vending machines are 30% more obese than other schools, how can you justify this fact to draw conclusions from your research? What does this study say?
2. 2 Present your research in the form of a thesis. The abstract is central to the presentation of your research. They should be controversial and specific, giving you a roadmap for where your research essay or project might go. A good thesis statement helps the writer as much as the reader, because it gives you the opportunity to describe a tangible thing in writing.
   • A bad thesis might be "Schools need to do more to avoid obesity." This is vague and difficult to prove. What schools? What should they do? “Adams High School has the potential to dramatically lower obesity rates in students and even in the region by removing vending machines and offering a variety of healthy eating options,” does much more to present an argument and give you something to prove.
3. 3 Learn to paraphrase and quote effectively. How do you present your research in a readable way?
   • Paraphrases the source to convey its meaning in his own words. They should always be signed, but not quoted, and are most effective when you need to summarize a position or argument. You still trust the author, but the observations are not your own. In other words, you can write:
     • Schools that have vending machines are experiencing an increase in student obesity, Adams said.
   • Quote any material found in the article. This is used effectively when there is something in the revision of the source that you want to emphasize or highlight as part of your research:
     • According to Adams, "The presence of vending machines markedly increases the desire of students to take advantage of unhealthy food in these schools, resulting in a chain reaction that rewards their poor choices."
   • Learn to recognize and avoid plagiarism. It can happen by accident, so you must learn to recognize how it happens and avoid it.
4. 4 Quote your sources. If you are writing a research essay, you need to learn how to effectively provide citation information for every source you link to, be it paraphrasing or encoding. Use brackets or a footnote for citation in the body of your work, and include yourself in the reference list or bibliographic page at the end of the article, including the publication of each source's information. Your teacher may want to use a specific citation style, but some of the most popular are: