Rather than writing a paper on a topic, students will be researching a topic to examine and to write about the research process for that topic in their disciplines. Students will research the topic as they would if they were preparing to write a research paper, but they will record how they found the information rather than recording the information itself. Essentially, students will be creating their own research guide for their chosen topics. The students should record elements such as keywords that they use, sources they consulted, tools they used to keep the information, tools they used to find sources, and each step of the research process they did.
As a secondary part of this project, they should reflect on the hierarchy of their research process: what pieces of their research process must come when, when are certain steps more effective, what elements do not depend on a specific order, and how that specific research process is dictated by the topic and their disciplines. They will then create the research guide for their topic intended to quickly guide their peers into researching the topic themselves. Students themselves can test the effectiveness of their research guides by switching with a partner and comparing to see if they find fallacies in their partner’s research process or if they find similar elements to their own guide.
Though this project has students creating an online research guide to their topic, they can also do a how-to/process video that explains to viewers how to find research in their chosen topics.
