How do epidemiologists determine the cause of a disease outbreak? What are the bases for production of vaccines providing immunity to such a disease? What local materials can be harnessed to produce alternative energy source? How can you improve an existing process to make it more efficient? Is distance education as effective as the normal face-to-face learning delivery? What is the present educational status of students in our school in observance of distance education?

You may know the answers to these questions off the top of your head. If you are like most people, however, you find answers to tough questions like these by searching the Internet, visiting the library, or asking others for information. To put it simply, you perform research.

As a student you probably perform research at some point in your everyday life. When your teacher, or a family member asks you a question that you do not know the answer to, you locate relevant information, analyze your findings, and share your results. Locating, analyzing, and sharing information are key steps in the research process, and in this grading period, you will learn more about each step. By developing your research writing skills, you will prepare yourself to generate valid and reliable answer to any question no matter how challenging they seem to be.

Below are the target learning competencies that we aim to develop this grading period.

Learning Competencies:

1. Practice basic skills required in research writing (Weeks 1 & 2)

2. Familiarize with the basic concepts in research writing (Week 3)

3. Describe the different stages of research writing (Weeks 4 & 5)

4. Demonstrate understanding of the basic guidelines in writing each part of a research proposal (Weeks 6, 7 & 8)