INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH FINDING INFORMATION TO GUIDE YOUR








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INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH FINDING INFORMATION TO GUIDE YOUR DESIGN Introduction to Engineering Design © 2012 Project Lead The Way, Inc.
“Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing. ” - Werner von Braun Father of the United States space program
TYPES OF RESEARCH • Primary Research • Generating original information (experiments, designs, observations, interview, surveys, etc. ) • What you will be doing! • Secondary Research • Gathering information that has already been generated (online research, book research, researching published sources, etc. )
SECONDARY RESEARCH: SOURCES OF INFORMATION • Books (look in the school library) • Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and atlases • Books on specific subjects • Magazines • Wikipedia • Youtube – be careful on this site! Always have permission, and never look for unrelated information.
FINDING NEWSPAPER, MAGAZINE & SCHOLARLY JOURNAL ARTICLES • Scholarly databases will help you to find reliable information on the web. A great free resource is Google Scholar! Google Scholar http: //scholar. google. com/
RESEARCH PROCESS 1. Define your topic, project, or problem 2. Identify key words for the topic – try a thesaurus for synonyms 3. Identify all resources that can provide you with information NOTE: Wikipedia is NOT a good source for information! However, at the bottom of a Wikipedia page, you can find links to good sources. Use those links to find information! 4. Use what you’ve learned to search for books, articles, web sites and other resources
CITING RESEARCH SOURCES • You have to give credit to your sources! Try to use APA citing. An easy way to do this is by using Son of Citation Machine! This is a free resource that makes your citations for you! • NOT citing sources is plaigerism. The consequence for pliagerism is a “ZERO” for your project. • http: //www. citationmachine. net/
REFERENCES • Garibaldi, J. (2003). Mla handbook for writers of research papers. (6 ed. ). • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). (1960). Wernher von braun. [Web Photo]. Retrieved from http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/File: Wernher_von_Braun_cro p. jpg