Extended Essay: Research Process

Define your Information Need:

• Five steps to developing good research questions
• Sample Questions and EE Titles (top scoring!)

Slides:

Locate Information

About Sources:

• Scholarly articles must form the bulk of your Works Cited page
• Web sources are generally not acceptable for EE

Early on, you may use Google & Wikipedia to...

• Get general information about your topic
• Locate search terms to search by
• Mine for citations (links to more scholarly works)
• Identify some of the experts in the field

FDR Databases and passwords

All Library Videos Playlist

Search Tips:

• Identify Key Words: Write out questions, circle necessary words, anticipate words in the answer
• Use Booleans to narrow or broaden your search (And, Or, Not)
• Use truncation (*) to catch more results (for example: creat* will bring create, creation, creating...)
• Use quotation marks to keep exact phrases together ("Florida Marlins")
• Use wildcards (?) to catch various spellings or meanings (wom?n brings woman and women)
• Use a minus sign to filter out irrelevant results (-fish)
• Filter results with "Search Tools" in Google
• Search for files and scans using " filetype:pdf" in a search
• Limit results by domain, such as .gov  .edu  .pe 
• Limit to terms in the title of a site or article with "intitle:"

Sample Search String:

• "amnesty international"    iran   intitle:execution*    site:http://.gov    "cultur* impact"    -oil

Using Google for background knowledge? Choose Advanced Search

Build a search string with Boolify - a puzzle-style google search

Evaluate each source. Critique and Question the information

Evaluation Tools:

OPVL Questions, by source

CRAAP Test Questions

How to take good notes:

• Understand information as you gather it

Avoid Common errors:

• Writing straight from source to draft
• Copy-pasting - "I'll paraphrase later" 
• Writing down things you don't understand
• Not keeping track of the source

Read more, Note less:

• Read quickly (scan/skim) 
• If the article has merit, read more closely - which sections do you need?
• Read closely ONLY those sections that apply
• Take notes ONLY on information you need

Notetaking Tips:

• Paraphrasing Tips slides
• Acceptable Paraphrasing

Notetaking Templates

All of these follow the Rule of Three: 1) source 2) quoted material 3) paraphrase together

• Grid Style Notes: Put your source once and create a new note for each fact from that source
• Category Style Notes: Organize your notes according to categories as you find information
• Digital Note Cards: Fill in the cards and organize later by cutting and sorting
• Cornell Notes: Track the key points as you go

How to Cite Correctly

Key Point:

• Everything you CITE in your paper must be on your Works Cited page
• Everything on your WORKS CITED page must be cited in your paper

View our full citation guide HERE, the presentation below, or Purdue OWL.

Citation FAQs

From the MLA:
Citations by Format

Ask the MLA

Citing Generative AI (like ChatGPT) in MLA

Translation and Language: a note from the IB

It is certainly permissible to use sources which are not in the language of the essay, but translation into the target language is required, one cannot assume that the reader understands the original language.

For the Bibliography/Works cited, my preference would be to list the source in its original Thai version, but with the English in brackets, to help the reader.

Your bibliography will have the entries in Thai characters first in the document. Any in-text citation to Thai sources will be in (Thai characters [English translation]).

Ex:

Citation in Thai [English translation]

Works Cited Example:

วงษ์ปัญญา, ธนกร [Wongpunya, Thanakorn]. “โรงงานยาสูบรวยแค่ไหน และเอาเงินไปทำอะไรบ้าง.”  [How rich is the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly and where does the money go?] (candidate translation). The Standard, The Standard, 30 Aug. 2018, thestandard.co/thailand-tobacco-monopoly/.

See "Reflection" tab - the IB has this step covered for you

Go to this page for guidance on citing AI tools in MLA9 and APA.

Further help and guidance here:

Ask the MLA - guidance on citing generative AI in MLA 9

APA Style Help - How to cite ChatGPT in APA Style

Artificial Intelligence and the Research Paper: A Librarian's Perspective -- This article points out (with examples) some of the most serious flaws in ChatGPT responses

SciSpace

SciSpace is a scholarly search engine for math and science. Watch the video to see what it can do.

Connected Papers

Add the pdf or url to an article you like. Creates a map of related articles you can sort by "prior works" -- previous articles that were seminal to the article you submitted -- or "subsequent works" -- articles that came later and may have developed the topic further. Helps understand the academic conversation around your topic. Free account allows 5 graphics/month.

Elicit

Powerful scholarly search engine. Search for articles by methodology, limitations, participants, and much more.

Here is a Quick Guide for using Elicit in your EE research.

Talk to Books

Ask for your topic to find relevant books. Also great to find a good fiction read!

ChatPDF

Drop in any PDF and start talking -- have it summarize, list main ideas, and more!

Click HERE to print this (pin it up?), via the IBO EE Guide