Part 8 of "How to become a super star student"

Michael Geisen offers junior high and high school students some pointers on research work they do in school. It is that time of year when many of you have already begun some research projects and will have more as the school year progresses.

Your critical thinking skills, covered in the last how-to article, are crucial in research because you have to sift through the junk to find the gems you are looking for on your given topic. Evaluating the items and using them effectively are key to good research projects.

Decide on your purpose for the research – are you going to inform, persuade or write for some other reason? What general resources will you use for background or foundation (like a textbook or encyclopedia or website)? Once you find something that piques your interest, dive into the material and develop a working thesis, the statement you are going to support or prove. This should sound very familiar as part of basic research work.

As you know and as Geisen points out, a good thesis is about a point of view. Say your topic is the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. Your thesis might be whether they were justified. Once you start looking for support for your thesis, don’t be surprised if you have to change direction and change the thesis as the research progesses. That often happens. Just keep your focus clear and look for primary and secondary sources.

Check your thesis with your teacher. And then move from general sources to specific ones that deal directly with your topic. Don’t forget to look at opinions by experts in the field as well scholarly articles. Some experts can be reached by email or phone, so don’t forget that may be an avenue to pursue in your search for information to support your thesis.

Geisen suggests rightly so that “the further you get in school, the more rigorous your research needs to be” and the more carefully you need to be in evaluating the sources you consult. “Review them for logical fallacies, emotional appeals, ratio of hard data versus anecdotes, the author’s credentials, and publisher’s reputation, and any potential bias involved,” he says.

Geisen offers an easy-to-remember five-step process for getting the best information out of your sources called SHLAO.

S = Skim the text to pick out where the information you need is found.

H = Make a hard copy of the text – photocopy or print a copy.

L = Label the copy with basic bibliographic information: author, title, publication data.

A = Annotate that copy to heart’s content. Mark it up with your notes.

O = Organize by highlighting in different colors the pro and con arguments, file related items together, or use whatever method that helps you find the information quickly.