Twenty-First Century Skills
Unit 4: Conducting Research
This Unit Activity will help you meet these educational goals:
21st Century Skills—You will employ online tools for research and analysis, use critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, communicate effectively, and assess and validate information.
Introduction
In this activity, you will learn about the research process and then write a research paper of your own.
Research is a systematic investigation to establish new facts, solve problems, propose new ideas, or develop new theories. A researcher analyzes what is already known about a topic and then extends that knowledge. To guide the research, it is important to verbalize a question at the center of the research.
To begin, a researcher decides what kind of information he or she needs and where to look for it. Sources usually include other published work, such as textbooks, journal articles, and Internet sources. Having examined a wide range of material from different sources, the researcher then decides how much of it is relevant to the topic at hand. Often, there is so much information available that the challenge is to choose the most reliable and accurate sources.
Researchers must accurately represent what they observe or learn from other sources and must not let their personal biases get in the way. They must be careful to document and give credit to all the sources they have used.
It is important to remember that research is not just gathering and compiling information: a researcher has to organize the existing information in a meaningful way, analyze the information found, and add an original contribution to the topic. The contribution may be in the form of new facts, viewpoints, or insights. Research often centers on a single central idea, or thesis, that is supported by a thorough presentation of supporting details.
__________________________________________________________________________
Directions and Analysis
Task 1: Writing a Research Paper
This Unit Activity will help you meet these educational goals:
21st Century Skills—You will employ online tools for research and analysis, use critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, communicate effectively, and assess and validate information.
Introduction
In this activity, you will learn about the research process and then write a research paper of your own.
Research is a systematic investigation to establish new facts, solve problems, propose new ideas, or develop new theories. A researcher analyzes what is already known about a topic and then extends that knowledge. To guide the research, it is important to verbalize a question at the center of the research.
To begin, a researcher decides what kind of information he or she needs and where to look for it. Sources usually include other published work, such as textbooks, journal articles, and Internet sources. Having examined a wide range of material from different sources, the researcher then decides how much of it is relevant to the topic at hand. Often, there is so much information available that the challenge is to choose the most reliable and accurate sources.
Researchers must accurately represent what they observe or learn from other sources and must not let their personal biases get in the way. They must be careful to document and give credit to all the sources they have used.
It is important to remember that research is not just gathering and compiling information: a researcher has to organize the existing information in a meaningful way, analyze the information found, and add an original contribution to the topic. The contribution may be in the form of new facts, viewpoints, or insights. Research often centers on a single central idea, or thesis, that is supported by a thorough presentation of supporting details.
__________________________________________________________________________
Directions and Analysis
Task 1: Writing a Research Paper