| | Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson often drew different conclusions from the same clues, the same pieces of information. They then looked for additional evidence to prove that something was true.
The process of solving a mystery and the process of writing a research paper have several things in common. Both require gathering and studying clues, evidence, and information; weeding out "red herrings" or irrelevant information; organizing thoughts; and presenting accurate conclusions.
You are a self-employed research writer. You have been hired by the Unsolved Mysteries Society to conduct background research for an upcoming documentary. It is very important for you to provide accurate information, because the people at the Unsolved Mysteries Society pride themselves on presenting nothing but facts. Your professional reputation (and your future paychecks!) will be affected by the quality of the report you produce for them.
| | The Unsolved Mysteries Society has commissioned a research paper of at least 1500 words analyzing the information about one of these topics:
| Atlantis, a lost civilization? |
| In about 360 B.C. the Greek philosopher Plato wrote about the city of Atlantis and its destruction. People thought it was just a nice story until the 1800s, when a scholar announced that the city might actually have existed. People have been trying to find it ever since. Was Atlantis real or not?
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| The Bermuda Triangle |
In the Atlantic Ocean, bounded by the island of Bermuda; Miami, Florida; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, is an area where planes and ships have been known to disappear without warning. The U. S. military insists it's all coincidence. But what do YOU think?
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| Bigfoot, a.k.a. Sasquatch |
For more than 400 years people have reported finding footprints of an astonishingly large human in the western United States and throughout the world. Real or hoax? You decide.
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| Crop Circles |
| Long before Mel Gibson made the movie Signs, people have tried to make sense of crop circles. People have confessed to making some as practical jokes. But evidence left at others suggests there may be something else at work.
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| Amelia Earhart |
Amelia Earhart captured the American imagination as a daring pilot at a time when most women were not allowed to work outside the home. On July 2, 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to fly around the world. Her plane was never found. What happened to her?
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| Easter Island |
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean sits a collection of huge stone carvings. The Easter Island Moai have been the subject of speculation for centuries. How did the native people move and carve all that stone? And why?
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Your paper will explain what facts are known, what theories have been presented to explain the facts, which theory has the most support, and what aspects of the mystery remain unexplained. The producers will use this information as they prepare the script of the documentary.
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The process of conducting and presenting research has several steps.- Choose an unsolved mystery.
| Atlantis, a lost civilization? |
| In about 360 B.C. the Greek philosopher Plato wrote about the city of Atlantis and its destruction. People thought it was just a nice story until the 1800s, when a scholar announced that the city might actually have existed. People have been trying to find it ever since. Was Atlantis real or not? |
| The Bermuda Triangle |
| In the Atlantic Ocean, bounded by the island of Bermuda; Miami, Florida; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, is an area where planes and ships have been known to disappear without warning. The U. S. military insists it's all coincidence. But what do YOU think? |
| Bigfoot, a.k.a. Sasquatch |
| For more than 400 years people have reported finding footprints of an astonishingly large human in the western United States and throughout the world. Real or hoax? You decide. |
| Crop Circles |
| Long before Mel Gibson made the movie Signs, people have tried to make sense of crop circles. People have confessed to making some as practical jokes. But evidence left at others suggests there may be something else at work. |
| Amelia Earhart |
| Amelia Earhart captured the American imagination as a daring pilot at a time when most women were not allowed to work outside the home. On July 2, 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to fly around the world. Her plane was never found. What happened to her? |
| Easter Island |
| In the middle of the Pacific Ocean sits a collection of huge stone carvings. The Easter Island Moai have been the subject of speculation for centuries. How did the native people move and carve all that stone? And why? |
- Find facts and theories about the mystery.
Take notes from books, magazine articles, and the Internet. Keep track of your sources, especially the page numbers of print materials and the URL (Web address) of any online materials. Ask your teacher for a format for your notes.
- Think about what you have learned.
Do you have any unanswered questions? If you do, you may need to continue your research.
- Organize the material you have gathered into a useful form.
Some people like graphic organizers; some like outlines; some like lists. The important thing is to plan.
- Draft your paper.
Get your facts and ideas into written form. Be sure to indicate the source of facts, ideas, and phrases you found during your research, so that you avoid plagiarism.
- Think some more and revise your paper.
There is more to revising than checking spelling and punctuation, although those are also important. You might want to reorganize, or you might see that you need one or two more facts.
- Publish your work.
Ask your teacher about the form of your final draft.
- Celebrate a challenging job well done!
Hey, writing is hard work!
  
| | Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were always able to solve the crime. No situation remained a mystery to them for very long. But they are characters in fiction.
You, in contrast, have investigated a real mystery. You have seen that not all sources of information are equally reliable. You have seen that some explanations are based more on opinion than on fact. You have seen that nothing replaces your own informed judgement.
You have learned how to find the most accurate information available, how to give credit where credit is due, and how to present your findings to others.
Congratulations! Even Holmes and Watson would be proud. |
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Teachers:
This WebQuest is designed for 5th graders. - Prepare a bibliography of reference materials for a report using a variety of consumer, workplace, and public documents.
- Generate relevant questions about readings on issues that can be researched.
- Synthesize the content from several sources or works by a single author dealing with a single issue; paraphrase the ideas and connect them to other sources and related topics to demonstrate comprehension.
- Evaluate an author's argument or defense of a claim by examining the relationship between generalizations and evidence, the comprehensiveness of evidence, and the way in which the author's intent affects the structure and tone of the text.
- Writing Process
Students discuss writing with other writers. They write coherent and focused essays that show a well-defined point of view and tightly reasoned argument. Students progress through the stages of the writing process (prewriting, writing, editing, and revising).
- Write expository compositions, including analytical essays and research reports that:
- gather evidence in support of a thesis (position on the topic), including information on all relevant perspectives.
- communicate information and ideas from primary and secondary sources accurately and coherently.
- make distinctions between the relative value and significance of specific data, facts, and ideas.
- use a variety of reference sources, including word, pictorial, audio, and Internet sources, to locate information in support of topic.
- include visual aids by using technology to organize and record information on charts, data tables, maps, and graphs.
- anticipate and address readers' potential misunderstandings, biases, and expectations.
- use technical terms and notations accurately.
- Use varied and expanded vocabulary, appropriate for specific forms and topics.
- Write for different purposes and audiences, adjusting tone, style, and voice as appropriate.
- Produce legible work that shows accurate spelling and correct use of the conventions of punctuation and capitalization.
- Apply appropriate manuscript conventions, including title page presentation, pagination, spacing and margins, and integration of source and support material, by citing sources within the text, using direct quotations, and paraphrasing.
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