Research Projects: Note Cards

It's time to get down to the nitty gritty! Let's get ready to RESEARCH!

A few things before you start....

*only put one thought/idea on a card... 

*write notes in your own words!

*if you are quoting a source, put the information in quotations on your note card

Just a few more things:

*you need A LOT more note cards than you think

*it's better to scrap some note cards when you start to write than to run out of research halfway through your rough draft

*not to be repetitive but USE YOUR OWN WORDS or quote it! Plagiarism does not look good on anyone.

Research Projects: Bibliography Cards

Cite your source! When you write a research paper... heck! When you state a fact of ANY kind! It's important to give credit where credit is due. That's what your bibliography cards are for.

For our assignment, a minimum of one book, one magazine article, and one Internet source were required. Before doing any research we made our bibliography cards.

(I forgot to highlight the punctuation on the Internet card... 🤦🏼‍♀️)

Research Projects: Preliminary Outline

Once you pick a topic, the first thing you need is an outline.... a road map for your paper. This first outline is your preliminary outline. Easy on the details... HEAVY on the organization.

A couple of points:

*Roman Numerals... then capital letters... don't need to go any farther than that right now.

*K.I.S.S. - keep it simple silly.... we're using just a few words for each point... really just skimming the top of the subjects

*it's a good idea to do this one in pencil so you can make changes as you research (but I'm too in love with blue ink to use pencil 😉)

Research Projects: Plan It!

It's research project time! Yesterday we started with planning our projects. Our first task was narrowing down a topic.

I gave them 3 large index cards. Two of the cards had a topic on the front. I gave them a few minutes to jot down as much as they knew about those topics on the back of the card. This was our brainstorming.

Then we talked about the three types of sources they would need to have:

-book

-magazine/newspaper

-Internet

Finally we talked about needing a topic that was not too broad or too narrow, and a topic that they knew enough about to start, but also one they would like to know more about.

Assignment for tomorrow:

*choose and brainstorm a 3rd topic

*think about sources

*rank your topic cards