I-Search

Welcome to Research in Seventh Grade!

Contents:

Research Process
Resources!
Bibliography
TRAC
Organize
Research Questions
Handouts

RESEARCH PROCESS

This is the Research Process. We will be exploring each step in detail as you proceed with your I-Search project.

RESOURCES

Exploratory Phase ONLY

Wikipedia use Wikipedia for background information about tons of topics. Remember, this site should be used for BACKGROUND info only.

Select & Extract Phase:

WMS Library Databases find TRUSTWORTHY information on a variety of topics available on the library databases.
WMS Library Catalog find BOOKS about your topic!
Minuteman Library Catalog find books on your topic from any library in the Minuteman Library system.
Boston Public Library Catalog find books on your topic from any library in the Boston system.
Google it! find information on everything - remember to TRAC your websites!

Bibliography

mybib

Watch this video for instructions on how to use MyBib.com.
To switch to the DESKTOP VERSION on your iPad (which is recommended), click the person icon in the upper right hand corner and choose "Switch to Desktop Mode".

Click here to get to MyBib

TRAC Score

Evaluate sources!

Organizing your thoughts

Keywords & questions

Keywords, or Search Terms, are words you will use to search for your topic. Your topic will probably be your first search term. They should be short, only one or two words, and be synonyms for your topic or directly related to your topic.
These two websites might help you come up with good search terms and keywords:
thesaurus.com
relatedwords.org

Guiding Questions are the questions that will support and direct your research. They will be a mix "right there" questions and "author and me" questions. Guiding questions change and expand as you learn more about your topic. .

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Writing a good research question is one of the most difficult parts of the research process.
Your question needs to be open ended enough to lead to in-depth research, but narrow enough to be able to be answered with sources to which you have access in the amount of time you have designated.