Learning

Year 11 General Unit 2, Mod 3 - Social Justice Issues

How a religion responds to a current social justice issue.

Inquiry Process

Through the inquiry process investigate how Christianity responds to refugees in Australia.

 

Step 1 - Question

Step 2 - Find

Step 3 - Interpret

Step 4 - Report

 

Step 1: Formulate questions in relation to the inquiry focus (topic / phrase / situation).

Focus questions unpack the intent of the research question and usually address learning or inquiry around who, what when, where, why and how. Focus questions are therefore more specific and will refine your topic eg:

Inquiry Focus = Marie Curie
Research Question = How has Marie Curie influenced modern science?
Focused Research Question = What scientific principles used by Marie Curie are common in contemporary science labs?

A Research Question

  • Is open (i.e. not a ‘yes or no’ question)

  • Is objective (not personal opinion based)

  • Is neither too broad or too narrow

  • Summarises the significant topic your research will investigate

Formulating the Research Question

  1. Specify the significant person

  2. Decide what you want to know about the significant person

  3. Turn what you want to know about the significant person in to a question

  4. Ensure that the question is answerable.

  5. Check to make sure the question is not too broad or too narrow.

Questioning Rules

  1. Write as many questions down about the INQUIRY TOPIC as possible.

  2. Don't stop to discuss or try to answer any questions as your write.

  3. Write down the questions verbatim.

  4. Change all statements to questions.

Step 3: Interpret the information you discovered during step 2 .

Write down all information that is relevant your questions in your own words.
Cite the source where you found the information.

Continually ask - Does the information answer your question(s)?

Step 2: Use various information resources from reputable sources to begin answering your questions to the inquiry focus.

​Research does not always start with the Google.

Other sources of information are:

  • Non-fictions textbooks.
  • Online Databases.
  • Interviewing experts.
  • Conducting an experiment.
  • Field work.

Create a list of key words from your initial searches as this will help you when searching different databases. 

  1. Underline the key words of the question(s)
  2. If searching the internet use:
  3.  BOOLEAN style search 
AND Italy AND Cooking Results contain ALL of the search items
OR Cars OR automobiles Results contain ANY of the search items but not necessary all of the items
NOT 'Hot drinks' NOT coffee Results exclude the second search item

2. Using Truncation and wildcards

* librar* Results will contain all variations of the word: library, librarian, librarianship
? wom?n Results will contain woman and women
# col#r Results will contain colour and color

Step 4: Write your interpreted information into the format required by the assignment.

Five Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism

  1. First, use your own ideas. It should be your paper and your ideas that should be the focus.
  2. Use the ideas of others sparingly--only to support or reinforce your own argument.
  3. When taking notes, include complete citation information for each item you use.
  4. Use quotation marks when directly stating another person's words.
  5. A good strategy is to take 30 minutes and write a short draft of your paper without using any notes. It will help you think through what you want to say and not be too dependent on your sources.

Plagiarism can sometimes be the result of poor note taking, or paraphrasing without properly citing the reference. You can avoid plagiarism by:

  • citing your references
  • referencing correctly
  • recording direct quotes and paraphrases correctly when note taking.

Quotes

When you use the exact words, ideas or images of another person, you are quoting the author. If you do not use quotation marks around the original author's direct words and cite the reference, you are plagiarising.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is when you take someone else's concepts and put them into your own words without changing the original meaning. Even though you are not using the same words you still need to state where the concepts came from.

Note taking

Poor note taking can lead to plagiarism. You should always take care to:

  • record all reference information correctly
  • use quotation marks exactly as in the original
  • paraphrase correctly
  • clearly distinguish your own ideas from the ideas of other authors and researchers.