Home > Subjects > Biology > Level 3 > 3.2 Biology research > Key tips
- Subject: Biology
- AS: AS90714
- Level: 3
- Credits: 3
- Internal
Biology 3.2 Research a contemporary biological issue
Key tips
- You must meet the deadlines for the various stages in the essay writing process.
- An issue is one for which people hold different opinions or viewpoints.
- Integrate means to bring together and organise relevant information and opinions from a range of sources.
- Evaluate means to comment on sources and information, considering ideas such as validity (date, peer reviewed, scientific acceptance), bias (attitudes, values, beliefs), weighing up how science ideas are used by different groups, own opinions, attitudes, and beliefs.
- Your teacher will provide guidance while you carry out the research, but the process and work must be driven by you.
- Refer to the marking schedule given to you by your teacher.
- Organise your research notes and copies of research material (for example, into a scrapbook) and at the same time construct a bibliography, clearly recording the sources of all the information you collect.
- Go through the researched material and highlight or tag the key ideas (for example, colour highlighting, stickies, and annotations). This will help you to quickly access key ideas from your researched material when you are writing your essay or speech.
- Your references can be included in the text. References can also be done in the form of footnotes, and this is less messy and more usual. Footnote referencing involves the use of a number in the text next to your quoted material, which refers to the author, data of publication, and page numbers (or Internet site), listed at the bottom of the page in a bibliography.
- It is recommended that you use the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing system and this will be outlined in your assignment.
