Reflection (post 7)

1. Reflect on what you have learned as a researcher. What parts of this project went really well? What was hard? What would you do differently next time? How would you change your research questions or your survey questions?

2. Reflect on how this research has affected your understanding of yourself and your world. Did you learn anything new about teenage experience? About your own experience?

Writing

The writing in this post may be informal. This is a personal reflection, so your voice should come through loud and clear.

Recommendations (post 6)

Make recommendations or suggestions for further research and social change.

Further Research

1) What new research questions need to be investigated? What areas do you and other researchers need to study more in-depth? What follow-up projects should be conducted? What follow-up surveys need to be conducted? Are there other populations that should be surveyed?

Social Change

2) Based on what you have learned, how should things change? Make any and all suggestions for change--at home, at school, among teenagers, among parents and teachers--that you think your research supports.

Writing

The writing in this post may be less formal and academic than the writing in previous posts. You are writing about what you think, believe, and suggest, so you may use the personal pronoun "I."

Conclusions (post 5)

In this post, you must synthesize the information from your published source and your survey data. Based on these sources, what logical conclusions should your readers reach? What does your research show or teach? How have your sources answered your research question(s)? Tell your readers in this post exactly how you think they should interpret your data.

Ex. The survey data presented in the chart below reveals that a significant majority of students believe girls perform better in school than boys. Although, 67% of the respondents were female, 82% of all respondents selected females as performing better in school.

Writing

The writing in this post should maintain the formal academic tone you have used in the last three posts. This is still not personal. Refrain from using "I" to emphasize how much others have to learn from your work--not just you.

Survey Data (post 4)

In this post, you must explain to your reader what your data shows.

Writing

First, explain the make-up of your respondents. How many people took the survey? How old were they? How many were male? Female? What was the racial make-up of your sample? Then, report the results of your survey question(s). You DO NOT need to explain how the data addresses your research question(s). You will do that in your next post, conclusions.

The language in this post should be academic and formal. Do not insert yourself into your data. Keep the "I" out of it.

Graphic

Create at least one graph or chart in Excel (Ms. Boswell will show us how) to represent/communicate your data.

Example

In a survey of 96 high-school freshmen, 82% of respondents selected "females" in response to the question "Which gender do you think does better in school?" The 96 respondents consisted of 32 males (33%) and 64 females (67%).

For another, more detailed example of data reporting, see the Data post on my blog from last year.

Published Source (post 3)

In this post, you should summarize the source (or sources) you found. Present the key ideas and facts from the source(s) without injecting your opinion or reaction.

You do not need to draw conclusions in this post. (In other words, you do not need to say explicitly how the source addresses your research question(s). You will do that in a later post.)

Writing

The language for this post should be academic and formal. This is not a reflective post.

MLA Citation

At the end of the post, you should cite your source (or sources), using MLA style. You should have MLA style guides from previous units. If you need help, please see OWL at Purdue or use Bibme.

Finding Sources - Take 2 (Don't forget the crate and the 300s!)

Good news: we may have found your source for you!

Books
Browse the books that I've pulled from the Social Science section of the library (the 300s) or browse the section for yourself.

Articles
Check out the articles in the crate, which are organized by subject.

Finding Sources

When you are ready to find sources, the best place to start is the DHS library website. Go to Find Articles or Find Books to access resources our library owns.

Looking for Articles:

Start your article search with the main GALILEO search page or Student Research Center. (You will need a password for these sites, if you are off-campus. Get the password in the library or from the library staff.)

Take the time to think about keywords that will help you find the best results. You need to think like the database. So if you find an article that is even remotely connected to your research, look at the subject terms connected to that article to find better words to search with.

If you have a public library card and know your PIN number (by the way...you are awesome, if you have this information), try a couple of their databases for this project: CQ Researcher and Opposing Viewpoints. If you don't know your PIN number, you can ask any public librarian to help you set it up.

Good luck with your research! If you need any research or keyword help, please contact Ms. Newman (hnewman at csdecatur dot net).