Extended Informational/Persuasive Essay: Home

This guide is for the senior English
RESEARCH PROJECT - Extended Informational/Persuasive Essay
Task: Write an informational, persuasive essay to share with classmates to:

Educate them on your topic

Persuade them to believe in the value of your topic

Engage your audience & entice others to read your essay 

Using library databases will ensure you create a quality research project 

Databases provide you with:

Up to date, relevant information

Evaluated sources

Citation information 

Subject specific content

Database Passwords - each database has a unique username and password (note - some only require a password, not a username) 

From home you will need to enter a username and password - in school, the databases should be geolocated and you should not need a password. 

Noodletools is an integrated tool for note-taking, outlining, citing sources, document
archiving/annotation, and collaborative research and writing. NOTE: When creating a new project choose ADVANCED under citation level. Use your Wayland email address to create an account. Need help creating an account? Watch this video.

NoodleTools also has a couple of great Help pages with a wide array of detailed tutorials about how to use it: NoodleTools Help Desk and here: NoodleTools Support. 

What is your question? All good research starts with an essential question. 
Ex: How can climate scientists predict how climate change will impact the future?

What are your keywords? Searching a database requires entering search terms or keywords related to your search. Consider phrases, tag words, synonyms (don't be afraid to think outside the box). 
Ex: "climate change" OR "climate crisis"  AND "global warming" 

Set up your search: Choose where in the document the database should search for your keywords:
Stick to Keyword or Entire Document 

Choose Your Search Limiters: Always choose "full document" - there is nothing worse than finding what could be the perfect resource, only to  discover you do not have access to the full article, only the abstract (summary). 

Additional Search Limiters: You can further limit your search by date and document type (the type of documents that are searchable can vary by database - unless you need something very specific (primary source, newspaper article, map) you do not have to use this limiter. Similarly using the date limiter is optional, but can be useful especially if you need current information.