IntroductionOrganizing your ideasCreating an outlineWriting a main idea statementTalk About ItYour Turn

Tech Tool in this presentation• bubbl.us

Organizing Ideas

Introduction

Some people like things very organized.

Whatever your personal style, when it comes to the research process, organization is a must.

Others don’t.

Which type of person are you?

Introduction

No matter what great information you’ve gathered about your topic, your audience won’t understand it if you don’t present that information in an organized way.

Whether you are this or this you must

organize your writing in a way that works for you—and your topic.

Organizing your ideas

By this point in your research, you might have dozens of summaries, paraphrases, and direct quotations collected on notecards or some other way.

4Better immune system—people who exercise are “less susceptible to minor viral illnesses, such as colds and flu.” page 213

1. Look at each piece of information and give it a label that tells what it is about.

How can you begin to organize all of that information?

1Goal is to have 30 minutes of light activity daily. Intense activity 3-5 days a week, for 20-60 minutes.

page 68

4 Benefits of Exercise Better immune system—people who exercise are “less susceptible to minor viral illnesses, such as colds and flu.” page 213

1 Amount of ExerciseGoal is to have 30 minutes of light activity daily. Intense activity 3-5 days a week, for 20-60 minutes.

page 68

Organizing your ideas

Categories for topic “Cardiovascular Exercise”:1. Time needed for exercise2. Exercise and mental health3. Cost of exercise 4. Exercise and physical health

2. Once you have labeled all your information, put similar information together into groups.

3. Last, give each information group a category heading. Your categories will depend on your topic.

Organizing your ideas

Now decide the order in which you will write about your categories. You might

1. Exercise and physical health2. Exercise and mental health 3. Time needed for exercise 4. Cost of exercise

The information to the right is now in logical order.

start or end with the information that will make the biggest impact on your audience

start with what your audience already knows and then introduce new information

use logical or chronological order

Creating an outline

You can use an outline to show each category and the main ideas and details that support it.

Use Roman numerals, capital letters, and numbers to show the organization of your information.

Cardiovascular Exercise III. Time needed for exercise A. Adults 1. Thirty minutes of light activity every day 2. Twenty to sixty minutes of intense activity three to five days each week B. Children

Creating an outline

When you finish the outline, look at it closely. Weak spots in your outline will mean weak spots in your finished project.

• Are any of my categories (the Roman numeral level) so large that they should be split into separate ideas?

• Does everything on my outline relate to my main idea statement?

• Do I have enough support for each part of my outline?

Ask yourself these questions when evaluating your outline:

Tech Tool: bubbl.us

Some people prefer to organize their ideas in a more visual way. One way to do this is by creating a mind map.

Bubbl.us is a free, Internet-based software program that allows students to create mind maps.

Tech Tool: bubbl.us

To make a mind map with bubbl.us, start by placing your topic in the center bubble, or parent bubble.

You can move the bubble to the center by clicking the Center button in the upper left corner of the screen.

Type the information. Then press Enter on the keyboard.

Tech Tool: bubbl.us

Each category heading from your notecards can become a child bubble.

Right-click the icon in the bottom center of the parent bubble.

Add as many child bubbles as you need to represent all of your ideas. A new child bubble and an old child bubble are called sibling bubbles.

Tech Tool: bubbl.us

To create a sibling bubble, right-click the icon above the lower-right corner of the child bubble.

Sibling bubbles

Tech Tool: bubbl.us

To add more details and examples under your headings, simply add more child and sibling bubbles.

You can add both sibling and child bubbles to every bubble to create generations of bubbles, even great-great-grandchildren bubbles!

Writing a main idea statement

You now have a good idea of the parts of your paper and the order in which you’ll present them.

Your main idea statement should be one or two sentences that state both the topic of your research and your conclusion about the topic.

Your next step is to create a main idea statement to tell the reader exactly what your research project is about.

Writing a main idea statement

You might use your research question as a starting point when developing your main idea statement.

Research question: How does cardiovascular exercise make a person healthier?

What I learned: Cardiovascular exercise brings many health benefits, but it also requires a person to invest time and sometimes money.

Main idea statement: Cardiovascular exercise is an important investment that benefits a person’s overall health.

Writing a main idea statement

Organization can take you from this

to this.

Organized notes, a well-ordered outline, and a clear main idea statement will help you stay on the right path as you go forward with your research project.

Talk About It

Discuss the following questions with your classmates.

3. If you were to publish your research in a form other than a paper—such as a podcast or a multimedia presentation—how would you organize your work?

2. What might happen if a student didn’t create an outline or graphic organizer to organize a research project?

1. What are some situations in which it is important to be organized? How does good organization help in these situations?

Your Turn

Emily has been researching the feeding habits of tiger sharks. Below are some of the main idea labels she has put on her notecards:

-food preferences -amount of food necessary -influence on ecosystem -digestion-hunting -location of food-food chain -formation of teeth

1. Organize the main ideas into categories by grouping similar ideas together.

2. Give each category a heading.

Your Turn

1. Here is the way I grouped Emily’s main ideas into categories:

2. Here are the headings I gave to the categories:

The End