Tips on helping students organize/create a research paper?

[laney_h]

I am putting together an Internet Research project for my students in computer class (8th & 9th grade). Since I am not an English teacher, this kind of assignment feels a bit foreign as to how to approach it with the students.

I have thus far introduced that the project is to be at least 10 pages, the subject is the history of computers and the Internet, they will be using MS Word to create it and the Internet as a research tool. I gave them some suggestions on subtopics and told them they needed to come up with an outline to start with. I also gave them some guidelines on how to use keywords, boolean and advanced searches on-line.

With this much information they are still unsure as to how to get started. ...Any suggestions to help them ease into the process???

:confused:

[Unregistered]

I used scholastic.com as a resource for reasearch papers. Just go to the website and search "research papers." they will give you a link to something about "How to write a winning research paper."

[Unregistered]

10 pages for a research paper for 8th and 9th graders??!! First of all, that is way too much. I only did that much typing in grad school.

Suggestions: limit to 3 page minimum, break the paper into chunks and set deadlines: topic selection, thesis statement, list of resources (works cited page), outline, first draft, and final draft. Make each "chunk" worth points.