Research skills and writing??/

[Heather in NC]

What do you use to teach how to properly research for a paper and write a research paper? I am having a hard time finding things that teach kids how to decide if certain online sources are legitimate, etc.

[Valerie in MI]

I read through this link I found when I googled middle school research paper. I think it's pretty good.

http://www.sayreschool.org/page.cfm?p=131

[Martha in NM]

...didn't SWB have a four-part series linked to from the main page of this website at one time?

[LizzyBee]

What do you use to teach how to properly research for a paper and write a research paper? I am having a hard time finding things that teach kids how to decide if certain online sources are legitimate, etc.

FWIW, my oldest dd can only cite online sources if they have a gov or edu address. They also have to cite some hard-copy sources rather than relying exclusively on on-line sources. She attends a college prep public charter school.

[Martha in NM]

...I'll ask ds for more information on what his English instructor told his class about search techniques which filter out some of the dross and lead you to scholarly papers. They also discussed how to evaluate the credibility of different types of sources.

[OLG]

Went to find a link to the bok ds has used successfully through hs and college courses published by Sadlier-Oxford and discovered that they now have some of it free on-line:
http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/grammar/writingresearchpaper.cfm?sp=teacher

The only thing missing is the terrific "form" the book had for keeping track of your sources but you can easily do that now with something like a citation site.

Mary

[atozmom]

Analytical Grammar has Teaching the Research Paper. It is a step-by-step process of teaching a research paper. You can go here to see a video with Robin Finley talking about the program. SHe also has Teaching the Essay. You can see them both at this link.
http://www.analyticalgrammar.com/teaching-the-essay

[Heather in NC]

thank you so much!!!!!!!

[LizzyBee]

...didn't SWB have a four-part series linked to from the main page of this website at one time?

Yes, and I really like it! The links are about half-way down this page: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/article-index/

[LibrarianMom]

1. Search YouTube for videos on what is a scholarly source, evaluating online sources, and other research hints. Many academic libraries create and post these resources for anyone to use. I would give you links to the videos I produce, but they aren't on YouTube.

2. Where I am employed, most professors will allow students to use one internet-only source. We use the term internet-only or online-only to differentiate between items which also appear in a more traditional form (such as the nine thousand full-text journals our library has access to) or are from an authoritative source such as government documents or news sites.

3. The one exception to the one internet-only rule is when students are referring to a primary source that is now available online or are referring to a well-known author or researcher's website or blog.

4. If it isn't common knowledge, it needs to be cited. Cite it if you put it in quotes or if you paraphrase it. That said, you also don't need to put a footnote or parenthetical citation for every single sentence. If you use a couple of sentences to paraphrase an idea from one source, cite it after the last sentence. However, if you refer to several different sources in the course of several setences, you need to cite each source used.