Effective Information Gathering: An example of how to research a Biology Essay

Organise your work

It is important to organise your work from the very beginning. Here are some effective research techniques:

1. Find your focus. Make sure you know what the major focus of your research is and stick to it. It is easy to get side-tracked, and you may find information that is interesting, but it may be irrelevant. You may lose marks if you do this
2. What do you already know? Evaluate and make a list of this information. You can then effectively work out what you still need to find out.
3. What do you need to find out? Define what you need to investigate further.
4. Discard irrelevant information. Be brutal. You may find some interesting information but if it is outside the scope of your report, discard it. If you try to fit too much into a report, it will take the focus away from the important facts and discussion. Be realistic in what you can cover in a single piece of work.
5. Organise your research. Keep a record of all the information sources you have found so far. This will make sure no important information is lost.
6. Organise your work. Structure your essay and try to make it as clear and logical as possible to the intended audience.

Example

Rachel writes an initial work plan to organise her work:

1. The focus of Rachel's essay will be genetic engineering and it's uses for humans.
2. Within the course textbook there is a chapter on genetic engineering. After reading this Rachel feels she will have some background knowledhe.
3. Rachel needs to research the following areas further: gene therapy; somatic cells and somatic cell therapy.
4. She will avoid the following topics: Dolly the sheep; ethics of genetic engineering.
5. She keeps a logbook of all the information she finds, along with any references she uses.
6. Rachel has developed the following structure for her essay:
   • Define genetic engineering
   • Uses of genetic engineering
   • Discussion of gene therapy for humans
   • Advantages and disadvantages of gene therapy
   • Conclusion

Now the essay outline is taking shape it is time to make a start on the research.