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What makes a good research question?
What makes a good research question?
So coming up with a good research question requires some significant knowledge of the topic. In other words, research begins BEFORE you choose or devise a research question.
What exactly IS research?
What exactly IS research?
Tuning in to a research topic you have been given simply means finding out what the research question is all about. For this, you need a reliable and straightforward go to database. We recommend Britannica School. Log in to this encyclopedia using:
- School username:eishc
- School password:eba
Dont forget to bookmark and save the password
Once you are tuned in, are in a position to starting thinking about different types of question related to the topic. Sound research will require you to devise factual questions, conceptual questions and debatable questions to answer. One of the debatable or conceptual questions may end up becoming your overall research question, but is is unlikely that a simple factual question will develop into a good research question.
Books!
Books!
You don't need to actually come to the library to find out whether we have books suited to your research topic. You can search the library website below. You need to log in to Follett Destiny using your library number for both the USERNAME and the PASSWORD. You can see whether we have a book, and whether it is available right now. If you search for book and find we don't have, you can select the WISH LIST option and ask us to order it for you next time we put in a book order.
The finding out part of the research process will see you moving away from encyclopedia type sources and looking at databases, articles, books, websites, newspapers, journals and so on. It can be very difficult to focus you research and difficult to find the appropriate sources. Ask you teacher or the Teacher Librarian for help with this and use recommended techniques and databases. For example Questia. Access Questia by clicking on the link below and login in with:
- Log in: Your school email
- Password: EIS (your school id number)
Use the internet like pro!
Use the internet like pro!
BrainPOP is an excellent source of reliable information presented on video and we have a school subscription.
Click here to access BrainPop
Username: eishcmcbrainpop
password: eislrc
Googling is a skill like any other, and you will get better at it if you use various trick and tips available. Watch the Brainpop and Youtube videos above to improve your research outcomes.
Take great care when researching on the internet. Remember the truism - anyone can publish anything on the internet! See the zapatopia link here for proof!
For teachers:
For teachers:
Secondary:
One of the Info Lit. items covered with Grade 6 and 7 is the discerning selection of websites to use for research. They will have seen the ‘North Pacific Tree Octopus’ site already. After the ‘reveal’ we discussed ways to quickly cross reference content in a site with what they already know, as well as the usual things to look out for in unreliable sites. A good follow up exercise would be to take this issue out of context now, and see how they respond to something suspect in a 'normal' lesson.
If you have 10 minutes somewhere, find an excuse to get them to look at the sites below and see what kind of reaction you get?
Science: Dihydrogen Monoxide - http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
Individuals and Societies: All About Explorers – https://www.allaboutexplorers.com/webquest/task/
Primary:
- PYP students are likely to be pretty quick off the mark in spotting this 'fake news' and unreliable websites, as they have worked in their library lesson on how to spot it. However, try them out on the Dog Island site and see how they respond.
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