Teach Students How to Effectively Conduct Research

Let’s face it: research papers are hard enough as is, let alone writing one that Includes proper research and flows well. Research websites for students can be hard to find. Especially when the internet feels like an endless hole of articles written by anyone and everyone. Middle schoolers often struggle with finding relevant sources. Even if they do, they don’t always know how to check if they’re credible. Then, they have to use what they’ve discovered to seamlessly weave their research into a coherent essay. (It’s a lot.) Let’s talk about how you can simplify research for students.

Before Students Start Their Research

To prevent students from getting lost in the headache-inducing black hole that is research, students need a plan. By roughly mapping out their essay beforehand, they will see where they have gaps to fill with research. Besides, they shouldn’t just use any old information they stumble across. Here are four things your students need to know before they start researching.

#1 Credible Sources

A “credible source” is a research website that students can trust. It Is written by an expert or professional (AKA someone who knows what they’re talking about!). It’s important for students to know how to find credible sources. That way they don’t end up wasting time with wrong information and producing essays that aren’t factually correct. 

Here are some common mistakes to warn your students against:

• Relying on Wikipedia: Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time (and there’s no fact-checking), so it’s not reliable. The information could be a work-in-progress or straight-up incorrect! 
• Reading AI summaries instead of actual websites: AI summaries can be handy for a rough overview, but because they’re so oversimplified (and usually inaccurate), students can end up missing out on important details. Plus, they can’t cite this information.
• Researching with ChatGPT: ChatGPT’s responses are based on patterns (instead of facts and data). It’ll confidently spout information even if it’s completely false. 

Want to teach your students exactly how to find relevant sources (and check their credibility)? Then you’ll want to check out the Research Writing Unit! This resource includes easy-to-follow lesson plans and handouts on credible sources and more. That way your students can produce amazing research essays.

#2 Quoting vs. Paraphrasing

“Quoting” is directly lifting phrases and slotting them into an essay with quotation marks. Whereas “paraphrasing” is where students snappily summarize what’s been said in their own words. Quotes are great for short, sweet bits of key information. Paraphrasing is more effective for condensing a lot of information. Also, a big thing to mention with students is that both quotes and paraphrases need to be cited.

There’s a whole lesson on paraphrasing vs. quoting in the Research Writing Unit. That way you can help your students avoid the nightmare of plagiarism! 

#3 Citations

Citations are a way of crediting sources by showing where the information has come from. There are a variety of different formats, but teaching MLA is the most common. Explain to your students why they need to include citations. They’ll avoid being penalized for plagiarism, they’ll be rightfully crediting people for their work, and they’ll add credibility to their own work. 

If you want to feel confident teaching MLA format, then check out the Research Unit resource. This unit contains reference pages and interactive notebook pages. It also includes a lesson plan to help you teach MLA citation – and make it easy for students to apply it to their writing.

#4 Organizing Research

Gathering research is only the beginning of the process. Students also need to learn how to organize and then weave the information into their essays. A student could have the most reliable, credible research, but it’s useless if they can’t apply it to their writing!

Some common mistakes include:

• Stuffing in too much research (like seemingly endless quotes) without enough explanation or analysis.
• Using irrelevant research that doesn’t prove their point or add anything to their essay. 
• Not including enough research, therefore their ideas are not supported and seem vague.  

A lot of these mistakes come from students not knowing where to start with researching, organizing, and writing effectively. However, you can effectively guide them through the process with the Research Writing Unit. All you need to do is look at your daily lesson plans and then pull up the accompanying teacher slides. Easy enough, right?

Research Websites for Students

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Once your students learn to research, you can provide them with credible sources to kickstart their work. Here are some of my go-to research websites for students: 

• The Encyclopaedia Britannica: It’s one of the most trusted sources in the world and includes hundreds of thousands of unbiased articles written (and continually fact-checked) by experts.
• TIME for Kids: TIME for Kids helps students understand current events and learn critical-thinking skills with articles designed for their reading level (up to 6^th grade). 
• Newsela: Newsela provides kids with engaging, accessible news articles to help them easily understand what’s going on in the world. 
• NY Times: “The Learning Network” section includes helpful resources like articles, essays, images, videos, graphics, and podcasts.  
• Google Scholar: Google Scholar is a quick and easy way for middle schoolers to research and find quotes across a range of literary sources (it’s more focused on academic, scientific data than regular Google searching). 

Complete Research Unit for Middle School

Want your students to successfully research and write research papers – but feel overwhelmed with where to start? In the Research Writing Unit, I’ve done all the work for you! I have scaffolded the entire process with fun lessons that are quick and easy to set up.

You’ll get 20 lesson plans (with pacing guides and prep breakdown), 18 teacher slide presentations to accompany each lesson (print and digital), research references for students (print and digital), digital research student writing notebooks, and editable research grading rubrics.

Your students will learn how to:

• Formulate a research question (and know the steps to work through to find the answers).
• Find relevant sources and check that they’re credible. 
• Compile their research to organize it into a paper.
• Write a full-on research paper (by applying specific skills like quoting, paraphrasing, and blending quotes) and create a research presentation to deliver to their classmates

Grab the comprehensive Research Writing Unit here!