QUESTIONS AND THESIS STATEMENTS

WHY RESEARCH QUESTIONS?

• Purpose• Relationship withd thesis statements

Earth Day

Information Seeking Questions

Research Questions

Thesis Statement

QUESTIONS AND THESIS STATEMENTS

Earth Day

Information Seeking Questions

Who founded Earth Day? When was it founded? Where?

Research Questions

Thesis Statement

QUESTIONS AND THESIS STATEMENTS

Earth Day

Information Seeking Questions

Who founded Earth Day? When was it founded? Where?

Research Questions

Why did Senator Gaylord Nelson establish Earth Day? How were Earth Day and Senator Nelson connected to the modern environmental movement? What impact did it have on the way we view our environment?

Thesis Statement

QUESTIONS AND THESIS STATEMENTS

Earth Day

Information Seeking Questions

Who founded Earth Day? When was it founded? Where?

Research Questions

Why did Senator Gaylord Nelson establish Earth Day? How were Earth Day and Senator Nelson connected to the modern environmental movement? What impact did it have on the way we view our environment?

Thesis Statement

Begun as a teach-in about environmental issues, Senator Nelson’s Earth Day raised awareness about environmental issues with the public and the government and marked the start of the modern environmental movement.

QUESTIONS AND THESIS STATEMENTS

Alice Paul and Suffrage Movement

Information Seeking Questions

Who was Alice Paul? What were her opinions/ideas? When was she active in relation to the overall suffrage movement?

Research Questions

Why did Paul take a different approach to gaining attention for the cause? What impact did her strategies have on public opinion? How was this a turning point in the suffrage movement?

Thesis Statement

Alice Paul’s attention new approach to advocating for women’s rights was a turning point in the suffrage movement, gaining the public attention the issue needed to pass the legislation.

QUESTIONS AND THESIS STATEMENTS

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• Good questions allow you to:– Go beyond the facts– Investigate issues of cause and effect– Examine change over time– Determine how past actions or decision affect

future choices– Discuss impact in history

CREATION OF INFORMATION

SomethingHappens!

Right Away

•Video or audio footage recorded

•Photographs taken

•Witnesses or participants see and document event

Within Weeks or Months

•Participants or witnesses give interviews

•Event is written about in media by journalists

Long After the Event

•Participants or witnesses write reminiscences

•Historians write books to analyze and evaluate event

Further removed from event by time or participation.

RESEARCH THEORY

CREATION OF INFORMATION

The Battle of Gettysburg

Right Away

•Photographs or drawings

•Journals, diaries, letters

•Government documents from the battle

•Artifacts

Within Weeks or Months

•Newspaper articles

•Speeches

•Government reports

Long After the Event

•Books by participants or leaders

•Books or documentaries by historians analyzing the battle and the Civil War

CREATION OF INFORMATION

Right Away Within Weeks or Months Long After the Event

??

SOURCES

• Primary Sources: Materials from the actual time period, event, or created by a participant/witness.

• Secondary Sources: Created by someone who wasn’t there or didn’t live at the time, like a historian.

Primary• Diaries or journals • Letters• Speeches • Autobiographies • Memoirs or reminiscences• Government documents• Newspapers from the time

Secondary• Books by historians• Journal articles or

newspapers not published at the time

• Biographies• Websites, written by

people who were not involved in the event

SOURCES

WHAT TYPES OF SOURCES MIGHT EXIST FOR…

Susan B. Anthony and the

Suffrage Movement

BUT HOW CAN I FIND IT?

• Before you search, you need to know the right search terms.

• You’ll use these terms to find information on the Internet, in books, in a library, or archive.

SEARCH TERMS

People

•

•

•

Other Terms

•

•

•

Ideas

•

•

Dates

•

•

Places

•

•

?

FINDING INFORMATION

• Libraries (School, Public, College/University)

• Historical Societies or Museums• Archives• Interviews• The Internet• Databases• Where else?

THE FIRST STEP

• Read a book.– Books help you to understand the “big picture”

of your topic. – Historians call this “historical context.”

Think About It: It’s much easier to do a puzzle and to see where the individual pieces fit when you know what the finished picture looks like.

THE INTERNET

• There are two approaches to searching on the Internet– Google it: Throw it out there and see what

comes back – Be strategic

• Both of these will give you WIDELY different results.

LET’S TRY IT…

• Google “Suffrage”• What do you get?

SUFFRAGE

• 1,170,000 results• Let’s take a look at the top results.

• 27,100,000 results• Let’s be more specific. Google “women’s

suffrage.”

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE

1. Wikipedia2. Wikipedia3. Scholastic

(material for teachers)

4. Scholastic (material for teachers)

HOW DOES GOOGLE RANK SITES?• Google ranks sites with a computer using

popularity, the number of times the site is linked to, and secret Google formulas.

• What does this mean?

HOW CAN WE SEARCH BETTER?• Be more specific.• Narrow search by adding terms.

– “history”– “documents” – “primary sources”

• What do you get?

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE

• Which of these might provide you with better SCHOLARLY information for doing historical research?

• Why?

OTHER GOOGLE TOOLS

• Google has other tools for researchers:– Google Books– Google Scholar

GOOGLE BOOKS

http://books.google.com

GOOGLE BOOKS

Results that say “Preview” are NOT completely viewable online. In general, they’re more recently published.

Results that say “Full View” are completely online. These two were published in 1902 and 1869.

GOING BEYOND GOOGLE

• Search engines only capture what is on the surface of the web, like fishing with a net. You will just catch what is on the surface of the water.

• Searching within databases –like NewspaperArchive –allows you to search deeper into the web. This is like using a submarine to see what exist deeper in the ocean.

ONLINE ARCHIVES AND DATABASES

COMMON PROBLEMS

You didn’t put any effort into your research.

Good research is more than just collecting the minimum number of sources. The quality of your

sources and where you find them matters. Without reliable sources, you might as well be

writing fiction.

COMMON PROBLEMS

You didn’t actually read the sources.

COMMON PROBLEMS

You missed obvious, easily accessible sources.

COMMON PROBLEMS

Your only primary sources are photos.

COMMON PROBLEMSYou didn’t use any

primary/secondary sources.

COMMON PROBLEMSYou took things out of context.

“Remember the ladies…”

-Abigail Adams

COMMON PROBLEMS

You used less scholarly research.

OR

OR

COMMON PROBLEMSYou only used Internet research.

IT’S NOT ALL ON THE INTERNET…

In a 2007 New York Times article, the National Archives estimated that less than 1% of its text records had been digitized.