Science Fair Research Paper Planning: The use of Outlines

What is the science fair research paper? What is it not?

What it is: a paper written about the important concepts related to the particular science fair idea. It is a third person (no I, me, or we) formal writing that is written using research from resources like books and websites. The paper helps the student learn all the background information about their project so that he/she can write an informed or educated hypothesis and to help the student better understand what happens during the experimental phase of their project. Students will have to cite their research (write where they found their information) within the writing. Students will use parenthetical citation (a fancy way of saying parenthesis) in their paper to cite their sources. More information will be provided to help students do this, but in looking at the example provided in this post you can see the parenthesis.

What it is not: a paper specifically about the person's experiment, including what they are doing, their results and any conclusions.

Here is a sample of a research paper. This does not include a cover page, but will give a good idea of what a research paper may look like.

The question for many is, how do we get from resources like websites, encyclopedias, and books to a 1 1/2 to 2 page research paper. The answer is organized research. Organizing the research into manageable pieces can be very helpful. How is that done?

Several different ways. One way is to use note cards and literally group the note cards with similar information into piles. This is a great visual way to help students "see" their different paragraphs.

One important piece of information to keep in mind is when ever a student finds a piece of information from a resource, the student needs to write down where that information came from. Even if the student changed the words around, that information still needs to be referenced or cited in the paper.

Another helpful way that can be used separately or even better with note cards is an outline. An outline helps the student break their paper down into smaller pieces. A well written outline makes the paper much easier to write. Also when writing the student can use the outline to write one paragraph at a time, making it easier to work on the paper over several days, which helps the paper seem not as intimidating.

Here are two examples of outlines done this year.