Research? How do I do that?

Books and Encyclopedia Search

Step 1: Brainstorm a list of keywords that relate to your topic.

Step 2: In a book, search the index or table of contents to find your keywords. Books will help in both general and specific searching.

Step 3: In an encyclopedia, search alphabetically in the text for your keywords. This will help you with broad/general search.

Internet Search

Step 1: Brainstorm a list of keywords that relate to your topic. Write those down, so you can cross them out after you have searched them. You need a list of general words and specific words.

Example: Topic: School Violence

General terms: School system problems

Specific terms: Guns in schools

Step 2: You may need to shorten your terms. Write those down, so you can cross them out after you have searched them. Try this to see if you have success.

Step 3: Make a list of keywords connected with Boolean connectors. Again, write those down, so you can cross them out after you have searched them.

Example: Topic: School Violence

Guns and students and schools

Step 4: Use these ideas to search on the Internet. Try several options. If you still need help, see myself or the librarian.

Found some useful information???

After you have found information that may be useful, there are 3 more steps to go.

Step 1: On an index card, write down the information you intend to use from your source.

Step 2: On the back of the card, write all of the information you will need to cite your source. This includes: author, title, copyright date, publisher, page numbers, etc.

**Go ahead and write it in MLA format. This will save time later.

**Follow formats below. If you need other source forms, see the MLA handbook in the library or ask me.

**Books:

Single Author: Last name, First name. Title in Italics. Publishing city: Publisher, Year.

Two or more Authors: Last name, First name and First name Last name. Title in Italics.Publishing city: Publisher, Year.

No author: Start with title, and follow format above.

**Encyclopedia:

Last Name, First Name. "Article Title." Encyclopedia. Edition ed. Publishing date.

**Internet Sites:

Last Name, Author's First Name. "Web Page Title." Web Site Title. Day month. year. day month. year <Web URL>.

Note: The second day, month, year is the day you retrieved the info.

Step 3: For your Internet site, you must include the next page. This shows me that you properly evaluated this site for authoritative and reliable information. Without this evaluation, I will not accept any work that came from this source.

**I would like to receive any evaluations of sites that you found to be awful, poor, or just satisfactory as well. This will assist me later in determining which websites should be avoided in the future.