Research

=Research=

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How To Become A Better Online Researcher By: [] written by [|Katie Lepi] on Edudemic: http://www.edudemic.com. With modifications for student use by Mrs. Conger.

Google means ten raised to the power of a hundred (10100). While you don’t need to go quite that far, don’t forget to diversify your search by using multiple search engines. While the “big guys” (ie, Google, Bing) often turn up similar results, you may often find something different and insightful on one that the other didn’t offer you. Even if you’re a die-hard Googler, don’t forget that Google has a whole host of search tools (like Scholar, News, images, & videos) that can help further define your search results depending on what you need. Don’t just skim the surface. Are the ‘best’ search results always on the first page? Companies pay tons of money to be featured on the top of the search results but don’t be fooled – it is worth the time you spend sifting through the search results. Better yet, you will know you have accurate, timely, vetted sources if you use one of the many databases paid for your use. Find them on the Home page of the library catalog. In the old days this was known as the reference interview. You’d go to the library and the librarian would help you based on what you told her. Now it’s up to you to know what you’re looking for before you put one word into Google or another search engine. This might sound really basic, but if you’re hoping that the Internet is going to dump a magical explanation of a concept or an assignment in your lap, you’re wrong. Start with definitions, if you need them, and use that to fully cultivate the idea of what you’re looking for before you type random things into your search browser. Search engines bring us a lot of information, but a little bit of tweaking can find *just* what we’re looking for (instead of a whole bunch of semi-related garbage). There is a new digital divide. The first one was those who were born before technology (your parents and teachers, the digital immigrants) and you who are known as digital natives. The new digital divide will be based around students who know how to effectively find & curate information and those who do not. This year we will learn to find and curate like rock stars, use things like quotation marks, dashes, two periods, country codes, etc. to refine your search results & make them as relevant as possible to what you’re looking for. While you might not need them to get some search results, you can make your results many, many times better if you do. Don’t forget to evaluate! We will be spending a good deal of time on this during the school year. You know that not everything you hear is true, well the same goes for the Internet. Not everything on the Internet is for real. You need to look critically at search results. Do they include [|primary sources]? Is the information recent, relevant, and verifiable? Does it cite where the facts and figures come from? Who wrote the article? Is it trying to sell you something? More on this later.
 * Diversify **
 * Dig, Don’t Skim **
 * Clarify **
 * Use Modifiers **
 * Evaluate **
 * Cite, Cite, Cite **

Give credit where credit is due. When you found facts somewhere, cite the source. If you’re using an idea that belongs to someone else – even if you’re expanding on it or making changes to it, cite the source. You wouldn’t want someone else to claim your work as his or her own, so don’t do it to someone else! The district pays for you to have a [|Noodle Tools] Account so you can cite sources in any format and take notes within the program. The high school librarian has put together these tutorials to teach you how to use Noodle Tools. __ Noodle Tools Tutorials __ [|How to log into an existing Noodle Tools account] [|How to create a new Noodle Tools account] [|Citing sources in Noodle Tools: Switching between content/medium/source types] [|Sharing your project with a teacher's dropbox in Noodle Tools] [|Learning citation formats in Noodle Tools]