Literature Review
5 Best Research Graphic Organizer Templates For Researchers
Discover the 5 best research graphic organizer templates to simplify and streamline your research process.
Aug 27, 2024
Researching a paper can feel overwhelming and chaotic. First, you must sift through countless sources before narrowing them down to a manageable number. Then, you need to extract information from each source while keeping track of everything you've uncovered. Research graphic organizers can help you structure your notes and identify connections between sources to streamline the writing process.
In this guide, we'll explore the ins and outs of research graphic organizers and offer tips for using them effectively. With the right tools and strategies, you'll write your paper quickly. Otio's AI literature search and writing partner can help you organize by summarizing information from your sources, creating research graphic organizers, and much more.
Table Of Contents
What Are Research Graphics?
Research graphics depict data or information connected to a research project. They summarize findings, help present complex data more efficiently, or illustrate relationships between variables.
Common Types of Research Graphics
Research graphics come in many varieties. Here are a few of the most common types:
Bar Charts
These visuals compare categories or groups. They feature rectangular bars that represent different categories, with the length of each bar corresponding to its value.
Line Charts
Line charts show trends or changes over time. They plot individual values on an X and Y axis and connect them with a line to illustrate how they relate over a certain period.
Pie Charts
These circular visuals represent the proportions or percentages of a whole. Each slice of the pie corresponds to a category’s contribution to the total. Pie charts work well for illustrating data with a limited number of categories.
Scatter Plots
Scatter plots show relationships between two variables. Each value pair in a data set is plotted as a dot on a two-dimensional graph. By examining the pattern of dots, you can determine whether the two variables have a positive, negative, or no correlation.
Histograms
Histograms depict the distribution of a single variable. They look similar to bar charts, but instead of comparing categories, they show the frequency of data within ranges or bins.
Infographics
Infographics present complex information in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand format. They combine visuals with minimal text to communicate a research topic to a broad audience. Infographics can take many forms and are often colorful and engaging.
What Is A Research Graphic Organizer
Research graphic organizers help you effectively structure your research. They visually organize the notes to help you analyze and present your findings. When you outline your research paper, you may discover that certain graphic organizers fit your project better than others. In time, you will figure out which types of research graphic organizers work best for you.
Concept Maps: Visually Connect Ideas
Concept maps in research look like diagrams or webs that show the relationships between different ideas or concepts. They help researchers brainstorm information and organize and visualize their notes. You can create concept maps to grasp the bigger picture of your research topic and assess how different areas of study connect. Doing so will help you narrow your focus and pinpoint specific investigative aspects. Then, as you collect research, you can revise your concept map to reflect new information and how it alters your understanding of the topic.
Venn Diagrams: Compare and Contrast Information
Venn diagrams use overlapping circles to organize data visually. Each circle represents a different research topic, idea, or concept. As you collect information, you can jot down notes in the appropriate sections to analyze similarities and differences between your subjects. Venn diagrams are handy when your research involves contrasting theories, historical events, or studies with different conclusions.
Flowcharts: Outline Processes and Methodology
Flowcharts help researchers visualize both experimental processes and methodologies. They break down complex steps into more uncomplicated, easy-to-follow instructions. Flowcharts can also help identify areas of research that need further exploration. For example, if you create a flowchart to outline the steps of a scientific experiment, you may discover an area that needs more information. This could lead you to conduct further research before proceeding with your experiment.
Timeline Charts: Track Progressions Over Time
Timeline charts help researchers visualize how events unfold over time. They can help you organize historical data for research papers or projects, track the development of a particular topic, or map out your research progressions. As you collect data, you can create a timeline chart to help you organize your information and present your findings.
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How To Create A Graphic Organizer Easily
1. Open Google Sheets
To get started, open Google Sheets and create a new blank spreadsheet by clicking on the "+ New/Blank" button in the upper-left corner of the screen.
2. Create Your Columns
Next, begin adding your categories to the first row or column. These categories will serve as the column headers for your graphic organizer.
3. Adjust the Formatting
After that, use the formatting tools in Google Sheets to customize the appearance of your graphic organizer. You can change the font, font size, color, and background color of your text to make it more visually appealing. Play around with the format until you find a style that works for you.
4. Continue Adding New Content
Finally, enter your research notes under each category in the corresponding column. You can add text, numbers, and even images to your sheet. Continue to add notes as your research progresses, adding new categories or columns as needed.
5 Best Research Graphic Organizer Templates For Researchers
1. Say Goodbye to Research Overload with Otio
Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today suffer from content overload. And they are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. Too many of them settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with a button, this problem will only worsen.
Otio solves this problem by providing researchers with one AI-native workspace. It helps them collect various data sources, from bookmarks, tweets, and extensive books to YouTube videos. Otio can then extract key takeaways with detailed AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat. Lastly, it helps you create draft outputs using your collected sources. In short, Otio enables you to go from the reading list to the first draft faster.
Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster. Here are our top features that researchers love: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (YouTube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), enabling you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT and AI-assisted writing.
Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!
2. EdrawMax: The Online Graphic Organizer Tool for All Your Needs
EdrawMax Online is a cloud-based software that allows users to create various diagrams, charts, drawings, and graphic organizers. By signing up, you can access a canvas to draw any organizer of your choice by dragging and dropping various shapes and symbols from the included library. You can also use EdrawMax Online to create graphic organizers for research papers. You can choose to make one from scratch or just use a template, albeit the latter option relies on the presence of a template in the template gallery.
3. HMH Templates: Free and Customizable Graphic Organizers
Help your students classify ideas and communicate more effectively with these free graphic organizer templates, available for download at HMH. They can be used to structure writing projects and help with problem-solving, decision-making, studying, planning research, and brainstorming.
4. Teachers Pay Teachers: Thousands of Graphic Organizers for All Subjects
TPT is a platform with over 2000 graphic organizer templates in areas such as animal research, career research, and more. These fillable templates are easy to use and can help students and researchers organize information in one place.
5. Canva: Graphic Organizer Templates to Get You Started
Learn concepts, brainstorm ideas, and gain insights using editable graphic organizer templates you can customize for any topic or purpose on Canva.
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Purpose of Research Graphic Organizer
Graphic organizers help learners of every age categorize, clarify, or simplify information. They support writing, reading, and research by assisting students to construct knowledge by exploring the relationships between concepts.
Supporting Complex Learning
Research graphic organizers can be beneficial for students tackling complex texts or topics. Teacher-generated organizers can help students categorize and analyze large amounts of information, introduce a refined lens to examine a complex text, and enable students to recognize patterns and compare perspectives. The visual nature of graphic organizers can also help reduce students’ anxiety about complex learning by providing a structured approach to the work.
Limiting Rigid Thinking
Despite their benefits, graphic organizers' structured nature can lead to some unintended consequences. For example, students may need more than the graphic organizer to manage their learning rather than approach the task flexibly. This can cause students to avoid the messy yet essential work of surfacing key insights or conceptual understanding. Instead, they may limit their thinking to just filling in the boxes of the graphic organizer.
Designing for Learning
When the goal is to support student learning, graphic organizers can provide intellectual guardrails to guide students toward more profound understanding and learning. Well-designed graphic organizers should help students categorize key concepts, surface the interconnection of ideas, or help students construct knowledge. For example, suppose your desired learning objective is to have students explain the paradox that an overly weak and overly strong government can threaten individual liberty. In that case, the graphic organizer must be constructed to generate that level of thinking.
The organizer should ensure that students move beyond the traditional listing of the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Instead, the design should lead students to thoughtfully analyze how liberty was impacted under the British monarchy and the Articles of Confederation. The organizer should require students to compare plot elements from the story to the typical rising/falling action, climax, and resolution storyline; determine where and why the author made similar or different choices; and offer a judgment regarding the deliberate craft moves.
If the goal is to have students form well-reasoned opinions, the ubiquitous Venn diagram, although a viable means to make comparisons, doesn’t automatically require students to weigh the relative strengths of the elements depicted, isolate the most significant similarities or differences, or rate or discriminate between elements that would inform a thoughtful point of view. Unless designed with the end in mind, organizers may unintentionally lead students on an intellectual scavenger hunt that generates surface understanding and thinking. The design of the graphic organizer must align with the learning goal and require that students apply the information they deconstructed to make meaning or develop unique insights.
Supercharge Your Researching Ability With Otio — Try Otio for Free Today
Imagine you’re a researcher. You’ve been given a grant to study the effects of climate change on polar bear populations. You’ll need to write a paper, and you want to produce something with real value. You want to collect and analyze data on the topic and write the best paper you can. The only problem is a massive content overload on climate change and polar bears. If you searched for "climate change and polar bears" today, you'd get over 5 million results.
That’s a lot of content to sift through. Imagine that instead of going through this process alone, you had a research partner. But instead of a human, it was an AI with superpowers specifically designed to help you with academic research. This is what Otio aims to do. It allows researchers and students to deal with academic content overload and produces better research papers.
Collect: Gather Knowledge From Anywhere
Otio helps you collect knowledge from anywhere. Whether reading a scientific journal, watching a YouTube video, or sifting through tweets, Otio enables you to gather all this information in one place. Instead of a disorganized collection of bookmarks, you’ll have a clean and organized visual interface that helps you get to the writing faster.
Extract: Synthesize Information with AI
Once you’ve collected enough data, Otio helps you understand it all. Using advanced AI technology, it generates notes for all your collected research. Need to understand what a specific bookmark is about? Just ask Otio. Do you want to chat with the data before you start writing? No problem. With Otio, you’ll extract the vital information you need to produce better research.
Create: Write Research Papers Faster
Otio doesn’t just help you gather and understand academic research. It enables you to write research papers faster. Using machine learning, Otio can help you draft outputs based on your collected sources. This way, you can go from the reading list to the first draft faster and produce better work.
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