Searching and Resource Evaluation Tips

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Searching and Resource Evaluation Tips
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Books Need Evaluating

• Encyclopedia
• How current is the entry (when was it written)?
  At least a year ago..
• Books
• How current?
• Does the book focus on my topic?
• Does the book have an index or table of contents
  to help me find information?

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and
Search by keyword, title, author, subject or
series
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How do you search Internet sources efficiently
while getting quality results?
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Boolean Operatorsgood for searching DISCUS
Meth and crank
Works for search engines toosome will use
symbols instead of words like (and) - (not)
Meth or crank
Meth not crank
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Searching Tips for the Web and DISCUS

• Phrase Searching hip hop
• Nesting- hip hop and (rap or crunk)
• Site operators rap music siteedu this one
  only works in Google not DISCUS

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Examine your DISCUS and Web sources for
1. Authority Is there an author? Is there a
publisher? If a website, is there an about us
or an info link? Could you find the people who
created the site? A physcial address, phone
number. Is there an e-mail address? 2.
Purpose was it written to inform or entertain?
Are you looking at facts of opinions?
3. Relevance does the source have info. on
your topic?4. Content does the source have
enough info. on your topic?5. Currency How
up-to-date is the information? Date of last
update? Date of article or newspaper publication
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Let's Search DISCUS
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(No Transcript)
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On the web, evaluating your sources is CRITICAL!
Live Link to the Google
Do you really want to use THAT?
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BEWARE Some sites, like Wikipedia, are edited
by users
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Isle_Beach
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Bandit
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go live /
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Remember to cite all of your sources as you
go! Its much easier than having to go back and
do it all over again.
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What is Plagiarism?
turning in someone else's work as your own
copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)
Paraphrase notes
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Taking Notes

• Use your notecards
• On side write all the source information
• On the other side write down the the main idea.
• For direct quotes, put quotation marks around the
  words.
• If you paraphrase (change the words into your own
  way of talking) you must cite include page
  numbers, if available.

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Now lets research