Research I: Research Plans, Research Questions and Advanced Searching

Two students, one topic

Amira and Josh both have to write a research report on later school start times. Josh types should school start later into a search engine, opens the first five results, and copies what sounds good. Amira spends twenty minutes writing a research plan: a main question, four sub-questions, a list of the kinds of sources she needs, and a search string for her library's database.

By the end of the week, Josh has five web pages that all repeat each other. Amira has a government health guideline, two studies, a newspaper article about an Ontario school board, and an interview with her school's vice-principal. Her report is better before she writes a word.

The Grade 11 curriculum asks you to locate and select information to effectively support ideas for writing, using a variety of strategies and print, electronic and other resources. This lesson is about the locating part: planning, asking good questions and searching like an expert. The next two lessons cover evaluating and recording.

Step 1: Write a research question worth answering

A topic is not a question. Later start times is a topic. A good research question is:

• Open: it cannot be answered with yes, no or one fact. What time does my school start? is closed.
• Focused: narrow enough to answer in the length you have. How does sleep affect teenagers? is a book. How might a later start time affect the sleep and attendance of Ontario high school students? is a report.
• Researchable: sources exist, and you can reach them.
• Interesting to argue about: reasonable people could weigh the evidence differently.

Question stems that work well in Grade 11: How...? Why...? To what extent...? What are the effects of...? How do different groups see...?

Then break the main question into sub-questions you can actually look up:

1. How much sleep do teenagers need, according to health authorities?
2. Why do many teens find it hard to fall asleep early?
3. What happened in schools or boards that moved start times later?
4. What are the costs and problems (buses, after-school jobs, sports)?

Sub-question 4 matters. A strong report looks for evidence on more than one side.

Step 2: Write the plan down

A research plan is a short document (often half a page) that you update as you go. Many teachers ask you to hand it in. Include:

• Main question and sub-questions.
• Source types you need. For example: one health guideline, at least two studies or reports, one Canadian news source, one primary source (an interview or survey).
• Where you will look (see Step 4).
• Search strings you plan to try (see Step 3).
• Schedule: dates for finishing searching, notes, outline and draft.
• Research log: a running list of what you searched, where, and what you found. A log stops you repeating the same search and shows your teacher your process.

Tracking your progress is part of the expectation. At the end of each session, write one line in your log: Searched the library news database for "school start" AND Ontario; found two board articles; still need a source on bus costs.

Step 3: Search strings that do the work for you

Search tools match words, not ideas, so you have to give them every word an author might use.

• Concepts and synonyms. Split your question into two or three concepts. List synonyms for each: start time / bell time / school start; teen / adolescent / high school.
• OR inside, AND between. Join synonyms with OR (more results) and concepts with AND (fewer, more focused results).
• Nesting with brackets. Brackets tell the database which words belong together: (teen∗ OR adolescen∗) AND sleep. Without brackets, some databases read the operators in a different order and give strange results.
• Truncation. In most library databases, an asterisk finds every ending (on this page it is printed as ∗; type the ordinary asterisk key, Shift+8): adolescen∗ finds adolescent, adolescents, adolescence. General search engines handle word endings on their own and do not use the asterisk this way.
• Phrase search. Quotation marks keep words together: "start time".
• Field searching. Databases let you search only the title, author or subject field. A subject search finds articles that are about your topic, not ones that mention it once.
• Filters. Limit by date (for current information), source type (newspapers, magazines, academic journals), peer-reviewed and full text.
• Web search limits. site:gc.ca (Government of Canada sites), site:ontario.ca (Ontario government), filetype:pdf (reports are often PDFs).

Step 4: Where to look

• Library databases. Your school library and Ontario public libraries pay for databases of newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias and journals. Most Ontario public libraries give residents a free library card, which lets you log in from home.
• Scholarly sources. Peer-reviewed journal articles report original research. They are reliable but dense: read the abstract, the introduction and the conclusion first.
• Government and official data. Statistics Canada, Health Canada, the Ontario government and your school board publish statistics, guidelines and reports.
• News and community media. National and local newspapers, campus and community radio, and Indigenous-led media such as APTN News (the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network) report on how issues affect real communities. Community sources often include voices the national news misses.
• Books and reference works. Encyclopedias are good for background and keywords, but are usually not the main evidence in a Grade 11 report.
• Primary research. An interview, a survey of classmates or your own observation gives you first-hand evidence. (Get permission, explain how you will use what people say, and keep surveys anonymous.)

Remember the three levels of sources: primary (first-hand: a study's data, an interview, a diary, a speech), secondary (analysis of primary sources: a news report on a study, a book about an event) and tertiary (summaries of secondary sources: encyclopedias, textbooks).

Step 5: Let good sources lead you to more

When you find one excellent source, mine it.

• Backward chaining: read its reference list or Works Cited. The sources it used are often exactly what you need.
• Forward chaining: many databases and scholar search tools show a Cited by link: newer works that used this source. They show you what has been learned since.
• Subject terms: look at the subject headings a database attached to the good article, then search those exact terms.