2. What is it?
A summary in paragraph format of all of the
information the student has gathered from
reference materials. Report of all information
related to the subject telling what was learned
about the problem, using reference materials
(books, magazines articles, personal
communication, internet, etc) before and
during the experiment.
3. Paragraph 1
Introduce your topic by explaining:
• What the general topic is for your science
fair experiment.
• Why you chose this topic.
• What interests you about this topic.
• What you hope to figure out by doing this
project.
• What questions you will be answering in
this research paper.
4. Example
My science fair project is about how water plants
are affected by water quality. I wanted to do this
project because it sounded really interesting and I’ve
never done anything with water plants before. I was
interested in this topic is because I live in Florida,
where we have a lot of water plants that I see every
day. In my experiment, I hope to learn what type of
water is best suited for water plants. The four
questions I will answer in this paper are: Why do
some plants live in the water? What is water
pollution? What are some plants that like in water?
And why is water quality important?
5. Paragraph 2
Re-state your first question from your
Background Research Plan and summarize
your research notes on it.
Example:
The first thing I wanted to discover was why
some plants live in water instead of growing in
soil. Through my research I discovered that. . .
6. Paragraph 3
Re-state your second question from your
Background Research plan and summarize
your research notes on it.
Example:
Next, I wanted to learn about what water
pollution is. I found that. . .
7. Paragraph 4
Re-state your third question from your
Background Research plan and summarize
your research notes on it.
Example:
Finally, I wanted to understand why water
quality is important. In my investigation I
uncovered that. . .
8. Paragraph 5
In your final paragraph you will be
summarizing what you learned and
coming up with a hypothesis for your
experiment.
Your hypothesis is an ‘educated guess’ that is
the answer to the problem. It is statement
with a reason. Your experiment is
designed to test this hypothesis.
9. Example
In my research I have learned about why some types of
plants live in water, that water pollution is any form of
damaging change to water conditions that can come from
many different sources, and that water quality is important
not only to plant's survival, but also for animals and
humans. Based on what I have discovered, my hypothesis
is that fresh water that hasn't had any chemicals added will
be the best environment for water plants. This water is
closest to these plant's natural environment, and does not
contain pollutants that could harm them. Not only will this
provide for healthier plants, it will help to create a
healthier ecosystem for both animals and humans.
10. Extra Questions
If you choose to use four questions in your
research paper instead of three, simply add
another paragraph prior to the final paragraph
and follow the same format as paragraphs 2-4.
11. Bibliography
At the end of your paper you will be writing a
bibliography to cite your sources. Citing
sources means you tell me where you got your
information from. This is why you wrote down
all that information while taking notes.
This should be on its own page with a centered,
underlined title: Bibliography.
12. Bibliography (format)
For each source you need to write:
Author's last name, first name. "Title of Article"
Name of Website. Company that owns that
website. Date you looked at it.
<www.thewebsite'swebaddress.com>
Here's a video showing an easy way to do this:
http://www.screenr.com/QNx8
