Research Questions and Tentative Claims UNIV111 – Unit 3 Lam Fall 2015

Topic Process: Topic to Final Claim Research Question Preliminary Research (Round 1) Scholarly Research (Round 2) Tentative Claim Final Claim! Search Term Synonym Table

Does your RQ focus on a future development? Using “Will” at the beginning of the question will help you with this. How WILL (or might) global warming affect the locavore movement? Will fashion trends in the future reflect changing gender roles? You might also trace a cause/effect relationship. How will the new health care laws affect the health of college students? How will tuition increases affect college enrollments? It’s also important that there is no obvious answer. Testing the Research Question

2 Rounds of Research Round 2 Focused on finding the 3 scholarly or substantive sources Look for support for your claim in two of your sources. Be prepared to revise your claim at this point. The third source needs to have an argument against your claim. Use scholarly or substantive sources. Round 1 This is the preliminary search. Look for popular or general sources for background information on your topic. Use either Google or Wikipedia You should make a tentative claim after this round.

Your claim is the statement/assertion of what you’re trying to prove. It’s the answer to your research question. Based on your preliminary research (Round 1), draft a tentative claim. As you do more research, you may have to refine or change your claim. Your claim should be focused on a future development. You should be claiming that something might happen, occur or develop in a specific way in the future. RQ to Tentative Claim

Research Question to Claim Question: How will (or might) global warming affect the locavore movement? Claim: To reduce the negative impact and effects of global warming on the food supply and on the environment, small local farms will become the main suppliers of the global food supply. Question: What can be done to increase the number of African- American males who enroll in college? Claim: Creating high quality after school programs in low-income African-American communities would increase the high school graduation rate of African-American males, thus increasing their college enrollment rate.

Due Friday Discussion board: Topic, research question, and tentative claim before midnight Next class, be able to verbally share your research question! Next class, bring your source(s) to class, paper or PDFs. ≥1 source in support of your claim Source must be either scholarly or substantive.

Search Terms Search terms need to be drawn from your research question. Preliminary searches (round 1) will also help you create search terms. You should also use a synonym search table to make sure you are exploring all of your options. Ways to limit a search: Pairing words Searching for exact phrases Excluding words Specifying a time period Specifying geography Limiting your search to articles from the last __ years Searching for scholarly or substantive articles only

Library Videos on Search Terms Refining Your Search Critically Evaluating Sources

Tips on fruitful searching Don’t just take the first hits. Make INFORMED CHOICES. Read the abstracts and skim the articles. Make sure they are relevant to your research question. Make sure they are understandable to YOU. Make sure that they are scholarly/substantive sources. Perseverance! Good research takes time and effort.

RQ: Will the Australian Aborigines further assimilate into the Australian society within 50 years? Search Terms: Aborigin* Australia* West* Evaluate this source: Relevant to RQ? Y/N/Maybe (explain) Understandable by you? Scholarly? If this is your RQ and search result, what would your claim be? Would you use this?