1. DISCOVERING A TOPIC FOR RESEARCH

2. Research Research is about satisfying curiosity, about finding something you are interested in, exploring it, and making discoveries. Research is about extending the range of what you know. It is like sailing off the edge of the map into unknown territory. Research is an exciting adventure, but this adventure requires no fancy equipment. All you really need is curiosity, and desire to find out who, what, where, when, why, and how.

3. Primary Research There are two major kinds of research, primary and secondary. Primary research involves generating new ideas and information on your own. If you take a note pad into the woods, watch the animals there, and take notes on what you see, that is primary research. If you makeup a questionnaire and ask people to answer the questions, that is also primary research.

4. Secondary Research Secondary research involves gathering and analyzing the results of other people’s primary research. Suppose, for example, that you want to know about the possibility of life on other planets. All that you know to begin with is that spacecrafts have been sent to the moon and to Mars. To find out more about the topic, you could do secondary research. You could read books and articles written about space exploration, or you could interview scientists who have done research on the subject. Most of the work that you will do when you write your research paper will be secondary research.

5. Understanding the Research Report A research report is a written report that presents the results of a focused, in-depth study of a specific topic. Its writer chooses a topic, gathers information about the topic from several sources, and then presents that information in an organized way.

6. The Research Process 1. Choosing your subject 2. Doing preliminary research 3. Limiting your subject to a specific topic 4. Finding an angle and writing a statement of controlling purpose 5. Preparing a list of possible sources (a working bibliography) 6. Taking notes and developing a rough, or working, outline 7. Organizing your notes and making a final outline 8. Writing your first draft 9. Revisiting your draft 10. Writing your final draft, with a complete list of works cited.

7. Discovering a Topic for Research One of the most important parts of doing a research report is choosing a topic. By choosing wisely, you can ensure that your research will go smoothly and that you will enjoy doing it.

8. Evaluating Possible Topics The topic should be… 1. Interesting. 2. Covered in readily available sources. 3. Significant (worth your time and energy) 4. Objective (make sure that you are able to gather enough facts about the topic to support your argument. 5. Narrow enough to be treated fully.

9. Writing a Statement of Controlling Purpose Once you have decided on a specific topic, your next step is to write a statement of controlling purpose. This is a sentence or pair of sentences that tells what you want to accomplish in your report. It is called a statement of controlling purpose because it controls, or guides, your research. The statement of controlling purpose usually contains one or more keywords that tell what the report is going to accomplish. Keywords that often appear in statements of controlling purpose include analyze, classify, compare, contrast, define, describe, determine, establish, explain, identify, prove, and support.

10. Statement of Controlling Purpose To come up with a statement of controlling purpose, you will have to do a good deal of preliminary research. That is because before you can write a statement of controlling purpose, you have to know enough about your topic to have a general idea of what you want to say in your report.

11. Statement of Controlling Purpose The purpose of this paper is to…: analyze the events of WWI and how they led to WWII. compare and contrast the beliefs and practices of the Hasidic Jews to the beliefs and practices of the Reform Jews. define the roles of the SS and the Gestapo. describe the Occupation and the events that led up to it. determine the events that led up to the U.S. involvement in WWII

12. Statement of Controlling Purpose explain how and where the surviving Jewish people resettled after the war. identify the countries that make up pre- war Europe. support the political policies and philosophies of the United States during WWII. classify Hitler’s concentration camps.

13. Statement of Controlling Purpose Your controlling purpose may change as you do your research. When you begin writing your research report, you will replace your statement of controlling purpose with a thesis statement, a statement of your main idea. The thesis statement will not contain the phrase “the purpose of this report is…”