Thing 16 - Research Project Calculator

The research Project Calculator is a great tool. I had a little experience with it before. Earlier this school year, I told a Senior Comp and Lit teacher about it and encouraged her to look at it. She was busy, of course, and did not get to do much with it. I pulled a couple of great resources from there to use in the introduction I gave to her class. I really liked the “What’s my angle?” graphic organizer.

Both calculators spend a good deal of effort on helping students create a strong thesis. This is a big reason why students have trouble writing papers; they don’t do enough with the thesis to make it control their paper.

The other very helpful suggestion I was impressed with was keeping a record of your searches – databases, keywords, etc. I never took the time to do this as a student, but now as a librarian, I’m always telling students to do this. Luckily, I can also tell them that many databases make it easy. There are so many online tools to help track research.

Very cool for college students! The Research Quickstart actually suggests databases based on the subject area you indicate.

There’s so much information to help students with the process. It’s a shame that most often, students are so focused on the topic that they rarely spend their “precious” time reading these pages of help on the process.

I am a little curious why the Research Project Calculator was constructed with 5 steps when the Big6 has been touted so highly. I suppose it might be a copyright issue.