Pre AP: Researching Skills Subtitle

The key word here is re SEARCH  You use resources to explore a topic and then you pull all of your own information together to show others what you have found during your “search”.

First step on your search: FINDING REPUTABLE SOURCES.  Some reputable sources for Social Studies:  United Nations  Cobb Digital Library (paid resource, use it!)  CIA World Fact Book  US State Department  The Economist  National Geographic  Time  Major papers like: NY Times, AJC, Boston Herald, etc.  What makes a website reputable: .edu .gov .org (although may be biased for a cause)  Some.com’s are reputable, but you have to make sure by checking it out yourself. One way to do this is to click “about us”  News sources are good, but make sure it is “real” news and not something like “People” magazine or Buzzfeed. Those are fun, not reputable.  Keep an eye out for bias. You can use a site that has a bias for something, but then be sure to also look at a site that has a bias against something so that you have both sides represented.

Why not Wikipedia?  Anyone can add to or edit a page in Wikipedia (scary, huh?)  Did you know that Ms. Lancee was a professional snowboarder?  Did you know that Ms. Zummo wrote a book about John Adams while she was at Harvard? Wikipedia is a good starting point to get an idea about your topic, but it is for REFERENCE, not RESEARCH.

Second step: KEEP TRACK OF YOUR INFORMATION. Remember to keep track of your information in an organized way. Remember to keep track of WHERE you get your information so that you can properly cite it later.

Third Step: CITE YOUR SOURCES (within the paper and in the bibliography.) Give credit where credit is due. You ALWAYS cite: Direct quotes. Statistics (unless you complied them yourself). Research (unless you did the research your self. “When in doubt, cite it out!” Works Cited/ Biblography at END of paper in MLA format. Citation within paper.

We are going to head to the Media Center and they are going to make your life A LOT easier… please pay attention. There are many ways to format MLA APA Chicago Style EASY BIB!!!!!! You will use this for the rest of your days in high school and you will use it in college… Ms. Zummo and Ms. Lancee only WISH we had access to it when we were in college.