Warm-Up for Research Writing
You live at a fortunate time. Before the Internet, people had no easy way to find out what they wanted to know. Friends had heated arguments about which actor played a part or when Czechoslovakia broke up or why there are 360 degrees in a circle. To find answers, people had to go to a library, search through thousands of cards in a big set of drawers, search through hundreds of shelves to find the right book, and search through hundreds of pages to find the right information. That's a lot of work. Not surprisingly, many people just chose to remain ignorant.
These days, you say, "Hey, Alexa, when did Czechoslovakia break up?" In seconds, she tells you that the former nation dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993.
Still, many people choose to remain ignorant. One fifth of millennials know little of the Holocaust. (If you are one of them, ask Alexa about it.)
So, research in the Information Age is more important than ever. And rigorous research reaches beyond the free Internet to scholarly publications that only your library makes available. In this unit, you will conduct research about a topic that you care about, uncovering reliable and surprising information that you'll want to share with others. That's the key to an effective research paper.
What Is Rigorous Research?
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Rigorous research digs deeply into a topic, discovering many surprising answers but also new, challenging questions. Rigorous research can start with Alexa and Wikipedia, but it certainly doesn't end with them. It can start with the top Google search result, but it must go much further than that.
Basic research finds reliable answers to who, what, where, and when:
- What was the Holocaust? The Holocaust was the state-sponsored persecution and murder of people deemed inferior by the Nazi regime in Germany.
- Who was targeted in the Holocaust? Six million Jews (two thirds of the European population) were murdered along with millions more Roma, Slavs, and Russians as well as homosexuals and those with disabilities.
- When did the Holocaust occur? The Holocaust occurred from the rise of Nazis in Germany in 1933 through the conclusion of World War II in 1945.
- Where did the Holocaust occur? The Holocaust occurred throughout Nazi-controlled territories in Europe, with numerous concentration camps in Germany and Poland.
Rigorous research also seeks answers to deeper questions: why, how, would, should, and could.
- Why did the Holocaust occur? Nazis believed that the Aryan people were superior and wanted to eliminate non-Aryan people. This belief arose from a longstanding prejudice that had manifested in pogroms and other atrocities for more than a thousand years in many Western nations.
- How did the Holocaust occur? Hitler used a systematic, bureaucratic mechanism along with the latest technology to enact his "Final Solution" of genocide.
- Could such a genocide occur again? It already has in places such as Russia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Serbia, Darfur, and Myanmar. Yes, genocide can and does occur anywhere that a state systematically persecutes and murders its citizens.
Rigorous research digs deeply into a topic, wrestling with ambiguity and complexity. As a result, it discovers many answers but also ends up with far more questions.
Thinking About Research
Thankfully, most topics of research aren't as horrible as the Holocaust. In fact, every serious topic deserves rigorous research—from the origins of jazz to the promise of urban farming. You can get a taste for conducting research by answering a series of questions about all kinds of fascinating topics.
Hunt for information.
Use the Internet to search for answers to the following questions. For each question, write down your best answer and provide the URL of the Web page where you found the answer.
- Who invented the first hot-air balloon? Where and when did they first demonstrate it publicly?
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- What were the famous last words of the comedian Groucho Marx?
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- What was the name and species of the first non-human to learn American sign language?
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- What is the purpose of the human appendix?
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- In 2018, what pepper did Guinness Records rate as the hottest pepper? How much hotter was it than a jalapeno?
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- Choose an interesting time period before the year 2000, and describe what clothing you would have worn, from head to toe.
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- If you could adopt any breed of dog, which would you choose and why?
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- Imagine that you had three weeks and $3,000 for a road trip. What route would you take and why?
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- Who was the greatest musician of all time, what was the greatest song, and why?
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- What are the five highest-paying jobs that you would be interested in doing and why?
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Teaching Tip
The first five questions above focus on basic research, answering who, what, where, and when. The next five questions shift to more rigorous research, asking would and why? Help students realize that these deeper questions open up many possibilities, inviting students to explore instead of simply finding the one right answer. When they develop their own research papers, students should let such open-ended questions guide the process.