BEGINNING YOUR RESEARCH PROJECT

STEP BY STEP Step 1: Think of a topic It should be something you are excited about. Consider whether your topic is easily researchable AND DOABLE within the time frame for your project. Are you comfortable with this topic so it will spark your own thoughts and opinions?

STEP 2 Explore this topic. This is the preliminary research step so you need to figure out what you want to find out about this topic.

STEP 3 You’re ready to think of your question Break down the question into keywords found in your question Make a list of synonyms of those keywords Do some research using the compiled keyword/synonym list

ESSENTIAL QUESTION The Essential Question is the foundation for your project. What do you really want to research? Put your topic in a question format – BUT consider Is your question TOO NARROW (or too small)? E.g. Topic: World War II What is U.S. death toll in World War II? This question can be answered with a simple statistic

ESSENTIAL QUESTION Is your Essential Question TOO BROAD? E.g. What could have been done to avoid U.S. involvement in World War II? The implication here is that the researcher would have to deal with every cause and effect of the war, including all the countries involved, and the economic implications.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION Will your question give you a YES/NO ANSWER? E.g. Did World War II cause many deaths? The answer could be answered too simply with a yes/no answer

OR IS YOUR ESSENTIAL QUESTION JUST RIGHT?

FOCUSED WELL DEVELOPED QUESTION Describe how the “big three” allies bring about the demise of the death camps in Germany?

SUBSIDIARY QUESTIONS Subsidiary Questions must relate to the essential question. Subsidiary Questions do not create new topics. Subsidiary questions support and explain the essential piece of information you want to research.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO FIND OUT? Subsidiary questions relate directly to your essential question. E.g. Essential Question: Describe how the “big three” allies bring about the demise of the death camps in Germany? For this question you would probably need to name the big three and build questions around each country and the work each country did to end the death camps. You’ll also probably need to identify a few death camps because the actions taken were different for each camp.

Essential Question Subsidiary Question