I have come to some conclusions about having students conduct research projects:

I notice how easy it has become in the digital age to plagiarize and copy/paste content from sources and not properly give credit.  Our students, many low performing students with serious reading issues, often cannot navigate the World Wide Web easily due to the high reading level of many sites and in their frustration resort to to the simplicity of copying and pasting sections of Wikipedia and other sites and offering it as their own work.

It’s for the reason I cringe at the thought of having students write a research paper or create a PowerPoint presentation without having the content already synthesized and written in their own words.  I feel that it becomes necessary for teachers to “control the content.”  In other words, student cannot turn a research project in without seeing the actual source material used in its creation.

How do I achieve this?  I make sure that when they submit any writing project, they need to show me the original texts they used.  Either through copying the text on to a data gathering sheet or printing out the information used.  I can then assist them in synthesizing and reworking the text into their own words.  Then I can show them how to cite the source and finally put it into their own words in the research paper or PowerPoint.  It requires a great deal of hands-on work with students, but it is necessary if you want to receive a well-written, authentic research project.

I cringe whenever one of my students says that “he/she is going to do it at home.”  How can I tell anything when they turn in a project or essay when I haven’t seen them engage in the earlier steps of the process.  With students in an under-performing school, why should I believe that they are going to create an awesome, well-written essay at the end when they are struggling to complete the in-class ditch digging?  By allowing the student to turn in a completed project without seeing their steps to the final goal is not assuring their work is genuine.  This is why I “control the content.”