IB-History class at YLAB

History Ylab excursion By Queen Rufaro Madziro and Sarah Parker On February 7, 2022, Mr. Glowsky and his IB2 history class visited the Ylab at Georg-August University in Göttingen to attend a workshop on academic research papers. There they listened to a presentation and completed a few handouts. Students were also given the opportunity to ask questions about their own papers in both history and other classes. Subtopics such as the aim of research papers, planning and time management, research techniques, and citation styles were discussed during this workshop. The workshop was generally well received by the students. One commented, “I liked it when we learned about the search engine BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). It seems pretty based and I think I’ll use it in the future.” Students also enjoyed discussing how much time should be allotted to each stage of writing their papers, and comparing how different time schedules work for different people. The excursion was rather short but immensely helpful. Prior to the event, many of us felt very insecure about the various tasks that we had to write. The IB diploma challenged us to write our first academic essays and the workshop helped clarify many questions we still had. We learned how to identify appropriate sources, make use of the local library and narrow down our research topics.. Personally, the most helpful tip was learning how to use Google searches to optimize your results and how to somewhat beat the algorithm and obtain more impartial results. The workshop was not only a chance to learn more about research …