Research
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LearningTranscript
00:00Ah-ha!
00:28I've cracked this baby wide open.
00:31Summer in 1903, an army of kids marching from Philadelphia to New York.
00:35That's like, that's like over a hundred miles.
00:38Okay.
00:39Okay, yeah, maybe a break would do me good.
00:44Dear Tim and Moby, I have to do a research report, but I don't know where to start and
00:49I'm freaking out.
00:51Can you help?
00:52From Nitin.
00:53Sure thing, Nitin.
00:56It's normal to feel a little nervous at the beginning of a research project.
01:00Whenever I start working on a new BrainPop movie, I get a little weird.
01:05The topic always seems so big and I feel like I know less than nothing about it.
01:10But that's the point of research, to gather information so you can figure out what to
01:14focus on.
01:16Like I'm doing here, for my project on the Progressive Era.
01:20Right, when we got that letter, I didn't know much about the topic.
01:27Beyond like, it was a period when there was lots of progress?
01:34It turns out it was this time of amazing transformation for our country.
01:37Women's suffrage, Teddy Roosevelt, the labor movement, World War I.
01:42It's tempting to try to squeeze in all the cool stuff you learn about a topic, but your
01:46project will be way more interesting if you focus on one or two things.
01:51So step one is to narrow the scope, or how much you're going to cover.
01:56And that'll depend on the size of your project.
02:00Mine is a five or so minute movie.
02:02That's a smaller scope than a ten page paper, or say, a whole book.
02:08Yeah, I still couldn't define my scope until I knew more about the topic.
02:13To figure out where I wanted to focus, I did some pre-search.
02:17That's just what it sounds like, gathering info to focus your main research.
02:22I needed a general overview, so I started with this encyclopedia entry.
02:26Turns out, labor reform was a huge issue during the Progressive Era.
02:30Workers across the country fought to improve terrible conditions in factories and mills.
02:35So then I asked myself, which parts do I want to know more about?
02:39I saw this picture of little kids operating this gigantic machine.
02:44And I got a little obsessed.
02:48Child labor was common until the Progressive Era changed things.
02:51Kids younger than I am had to work in factories, mines, and other dangerous places.
02:57They put in twelve and fourteen hour days for low pay.
03:01Permanent injury and death were everyday risks.
03:05And if they didn't work hard enough, they could be beaten.
03:09So then, get this.
03:11A labor activist called Mother Jones led hundreds of child workers on a protest march from Philadelphia
03:18all the way to New York City, and then on to President Theodore Roosevelt's summer
03:22home in Long Island.
03:24They called it the March of the Mill Children.
03:26Right, phrasing my topic as a research question helped me define my scope.
03:33And I think that's pretty good.
03:34How did the March of the Mill Children help child workers?
03:38It's open-ended.
03:39There are several possible answers.
03:42It's specific enough that I can probably answer it in my project.
03:46And most importantly, I really want to know the answer.
03:50It's way more exciting than just, what was the Progressive Era, right?
03:58Okay, slow down.
04:00It's easy to get excited and go off in all directions.
04:03It's actually a sign of a good research question.
04:06It makes you want to find out more.
04:09But stay focused.
04:10Our goal is to find out the answer to that main question.
04:14Any smaller sub-questions you choose need to help us get there.
04:17Like, what were working conditions like for these kids?
04:21What prompted them to go on a protest march?
04:24Who were some of the marchers, and what happened to them?
04:27Choosing your sub-questions and putting them in order is a bit like writing an outline.
04:31You'll identify the main areas of your research, which will later be the main sections of your project.
04:37To answer these questions, we'll need sources.
04:40Things like books, articles, videos, and podcasts.
04:45You can start by searching online.
04:47Think of search terms related to your research questions.
04:51Our internet search movie has good strategies for getting the best results.
04:55Don't forget, you can always change your questions as you learn more.
04:59Research isn't a straight line.
05:01You might return to earlier steps or come up with new questions along the way.
05:06And if you have access to a library, make some time to go there.
05:09You might discover sources that you couldn't find online.
05:13Plus, librarians know about all kinds of things, great search tips, and unusual sources.
05:21To find the most relevant info, flip through a book's table of contents at the beginning
05:25or its index at the back.
05:27Or read the headline and first few sentences of an article.
05:31Like in this big boy, we can skip right to Chapter 8 to read about the march.
05:36Hold up! Don't just copy down everything on the page.
05:40Limit your notes to things that will help you answer your research questions.
05:44Like examples or facts written in your own words or paraphrased.
05:48Direct quotes using quotation marks with the source clearly labeled.
05:53Summaries of a source's opinions.
05:55And your own ideas about what you read.
05:58I like to put each note on a separate card with the source's author on the back.
06:03That makes it easy to write a bibliography or list of sources.
06:07And you can organize each card under the research question it goes with.
06:12Hello there, Pally.
06:14Before you go back to TV, you've got to help me put together this outline.
06:21January 15th, 1919, 21 dead in Boston molasses flood.
06:27Tank explosion sends 2 million gallons of treacle oozing through the streets of downtown Boston.
06:33This is just the kind of public safety disaster that defines the progressive era.
06:38Shut it down. We're starting over from scratch.