Beginning Your Research

OK, so by now you've been given your research topic and begun the research process.  What next? 

This week you should be focusing on identifying what you need to know more about.  In other words, you have to learn just enough about your topic to know which questions to ask. 

Start with encyclopedias or other simple reference resources, such as Wikipedia or Encarta online, or one of the sets of encyclopedias that we have in the KW library.  In general, encyclopedias are written without bias (having an opinion or point of view about the subject).  This means that you can generally trust what you find in these resources, because they report the facts without analysis or interpretation.  (Remember, though, that even encyclopedias can get facts wrong, become outdated, etc.)

Use these resources to develop a list of keywords or phrases.  What are the events, places, people, groups, or ideas that you come across when you read about the events that led up to your conflict?  If a word or phrase is used more than once, it is probably important.  If there is a map, chart, or picture, write down what info they are trying to show.  Ignore anything that happened after the date that your conflict started-- you only care about the causes!

Once you have looked at a couple of reference books and gathered some keywords, the next step is to create thoughtful questions using those terms.  Answering these questions will be the goal of your more in-depth research.  For example, let's say your topic was the causes of the American Revolution, and you knew little to nothing about it.  You might have read about George Washington several times, but not really know whether he might have caused the war.  You wrote his name down as you made your list of keywords.  Now create a question about him, such as:  "What did George Washington do before the American Revolution?  How might he have helped cause the war?"  Then, instead of typing, "Causes of the American Revolution" in Google and hoping you will stumble across a good website, you can look for more information about a specific person related to the war. 

As you search out more about each specific keyword, you will also find out more about what caused your conflict.  Each new resource will also add to your list of more keywords and more questions to research.  Your amount of knowledge will build over time, and you will start to make connections.

Ultimately, by using the keywords approach, you will go from looking at a broad range of information to more and more specific facts.  When you have found lots of specific facts, you can then put them together ultimately to create the big idea-- your thesis statement.