Research

Print Sources  Almanacs  Have current facts and statistics  Atlases  Maps, population stats, geography, and climate  Dictionaries  Pronunciation, definition, etymology (word origins), spelling, parts of speech (n, adv, adj, etc.)  Encyclopedia  General interest articles on a wide variety of topics written by experts. Good for background information/starting point in research.  Specialized reference works  Specialized references in every field, from chemistry, to English, to sports  Indexes  Alphabetical lists of information, usually subjects, authors, and titles

Electronic Sources: Online sources  Print periodicals or scholarly journals published online.  Informational websites—sites ending with.edu,.gov,.org tend to be more reliable than.com (commercial or business) websites.  Electronic databases allow you to search a wide variety of sources and journals.  Electronic news media—articles, interviews, etc.

Other electronic sources  Documentaries, news reports, or other film media  Podcasts  Audio (an interview done on the radio, for example)

What would be the best research tool or reference to use to find:  The year John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature? a. National Newspaper Index b. encyclopedia c. Search engine d. Book on famous authors  Recent photos taken of the surface of Mars? a. Science website, like NASA.gov b. Encyclopedia c. Online card catalogue d. Newspaper article on space The elevations of regions within the Arctic Circle? a.Newspaper database b.Almanac c.Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature d.Atlas The total gold production in Russia for 2005? a.Russian government home page b.Almanac c.Science database d.Encyclopedia article on mining

Evaluating and interpreting online sources What you can tell by what’s after the dot..comCommercial; might be helpful but probably biased because they are usually selling or promoting something.eduAssociated with an educational institution; usually fairly reliable, but they might be less so if they are from an individual student or something like an elementary classroom..govOfficial site belonging to the federal, state, or local government; likely to be reliable and objective with wide-ranging information.netCan be purchased by anyone (like.com).orgVernally used by nonprofit organizations; may be reliable— especially if devoted to some scholarly endeavor (like a museum), but can often be biased

Additional information  Dates: look for when the site was last updated, often found on bottom left or right corner.  Sponsor: who funds the site and controls the content? Often pretty straightforward. Sponsor: There it is! That was easy

Menus: note the organization (it might be something you can “steal” for your paper)

Date updated = Important for citations! Website sponsor

STEP 1: choose your topic  This means that you will have to limit yourself—narrow it down in some way. A research paper on “Hockey” would be incredibly vague or incredibly long. We don’t want either of those. Choose something like a specific team or player or history or how the game has changed.  Face it, you can’t cover everything!  Narrowing your topic is often done while you are starting your research—general searches, reading encyclopedia entries— when you start to get an idea of what interests you and what information is out there.

STEP 2: Research!  Take notes on your sources. Write the name, author, URL, and other important information for citations and the information you gain from that source.  As you find out more, you might have to go back to step 1 for a bit to refine your area of focus. Example notes -2,181 miles -completed in 1937

STEP 3: Organize  Once you have a pile of notes regarding your topic, think of how you might organize all this information. Chronologically? Geographically? By Source? Step-by-step? Compare/contrast? It depends on your topic, information, and preferences.

STEP 4: Write  If you have done the other steps thoroughly, this one should be a breeze.  Intro paragraph: includes your thesis—your main point; give an overview of your main ideas  Follow your organizational pattern—each main idea should get a paragraph. Make sure to note when you are using a fact you need to cite and where it is from.  Conclusion: summarize what you have said, draw conclusions (get it, conclusion?)

Step 5: Format and edit  Make sure you give credit to your sources!  If it is a specific piece of information, cite it.  The AT is 2187 miles long.  If it is common knowledge, you don’t need to.  The AT is over 2000 miles long.  In-text citations (we’ll talk more about this later)  Works Cited page: a list of your sources in MLA format (also, more on this later)  Read your paper over and check for spelling, grammar, organization.

Citations   OWL (online writing lab) at Purdue = very helpful resource for formatting and citing for research papers!