The Best Way To Research
I really wanted to talk about the Assignment Three research question and all the work involved with it. Throughout high school, I had many research projects from english final papers, to lengthy History biographies, and even researching studies to base my own science research paper off of. I had never in high school been asked to see research as the assignment itself rather than the paper that would be following. The assignment made me rethink the way I conducted research. Most of all, it made me realize that there may be more efficent ways to research a topic, but over all there is no correct way.
As I began with my orignal research question, I found a few works that fit my question perfectly, some that were close, and many that had nothing to do with my question at all. Mr. Strickland had commented that was my question was too broad, and it was not until class, with the help of my peers, that I was able to understand how to narrow down my question to be more specific.
While reseraching my new, updated question, I faced a new challeneg that I did not expect to run in to: my question as a whole did not have an obvious answer. I had to figure out how to break down a specific question into smaller specific questions and then put the results together to figure out the answer to my orignal question. Using alternative keywords helped me to focus in on certain topics and the finder bar became my best friend. Without the finder bar I would have had to skim through numerous articles, journals, and books looking for a certain word.
Overall, Assignment Three helped me to shift my perspective on a paper from worying about how to write the paper, to being more focused on how my research will affect the quality of the paper. Discovering new websites and tricks to use that make research easier wil help me in the future to expand my search results. Not only did I learn how to research more effectively, I also learned how to pose a question that requires true research to answer, not just by the push of a button.
As I began with my orignal research question, I found a few works that fit my question perfectly, some that were close, and many that had nothing to do with my question at all. Mr. Strickland had commented that was my question was too broad, and it was not until class, with the help of my peers, that I was able to understand how to narrow down my question to be more specific.
While reseraching my new, updated question, I faced a new challeneg that I did not expect to run in to: my question as a whole did not have an obvious answer. I had to figure out how to break down a specific question into smaller specific questions and then put the results together to figure out the answer to my orignal question. Using alternative keywords helped me to focus in on certain topics and the finder bar became my best friend. Without the finder bar I would have had to skim through numerous articles, journals, and books looking for a certain word.
Overall, Assignment Three helped me to shift my perspective on a paper from worying about how to write the paper, to being more focused on how my research will affect the quality of the paper. Discovering new websites and tricks to use that make research easier wil help me in the future to expand my search results. Not only did I learn how to research more effectively, I also learned how to pose a question that requires true research to answer, not just by the push of a button.
Definitely agree that the quality of the paper is almost largely dependent on the quality of research.
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