It seems in this day and age everyone thinks research is copy and paste. In this lesson I will go over what you need to do to research like a pro. You can use these skills in ANY subject area.
Framing your inquiry
This can be done in many ways. This is called a hypothesis. EVERY research starts with this. In history you might ask "What led to World War I?" Your hypothesis might be that nationalism contributed to World War I. So even though the video below is about science this can be used for all subject areas.
Try asking yourself some questions
Make some educated guesses of what you think you will find
Where is the best place to find your information - you need to use websites that are relevant and reliable.
As you collect your sources I recommend that you create a bibliography as you go along.
As you write up your findings I recommend this structure.
Topic sentence - what the paragraph is going to be about.
Supporting detail - this is to support the topic sentence.
Facts
Expert testimony
Statistics
Personal experiences
Concluding sentence - which is often your opinion on the topic or evidence. You should also use this sentence to link to the next paragraph.
You need to tie everything together with a conclusion.
Generalisations are acceptable in your conclusion.