Ask Questions

Knowing something about the background--the time and the place in which writers set their works--become important, especially for students who want to understand fully the texts they read.

• Write down key words from questions
• Decide what is the best resource--book, periodical, journal, electronic, etc.
• Record notes and bibliographic information from all sources consulted
  • When using note cards, record all the bibliographic information for each source
    • Author's first and last name
    • Title of the book or web site
    • City of publication
    • Publishing company and the year of publication
    • MLAFormat
    • MLA Bibliography checklist
• Sites to help with note-taking when researching
  • Note-Taking and Research
  • Purdue University's site on note-taking

Print

Online

• Search Strategy--BOOLEAN Searching in the Advanced Search section
  • AND--means you are looking for every document which includes all of the keywords (NARROWS the search)
  • OR--means you are looking for every document which contains any of the keywords (BROADENS the search)
  • NOT--means you are looking for every document which has your keywords but NOT on a particular topic
  • Other sites on BOOLEAN searching
    • Primer on BOOLEAN logic
    • ADAM (Art, Design, Architecture & Media Design Gateway) on BOOLEAN

	American National Biography-- information on dead Americans
	General Encyclopedia
	Facts.Com. Good news source on all topics of interest. Issues and Controversies is found here. Username and password availabe on EDLINE and in the Media Center.
	With a Montgomery County Public Library card number you can have access to some great research tools such as The Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion or the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas.
	netTrekker. An excellent replacement to Google. netTrekker has over 180,000 educator-selected online resources organized by reading level. Username and password availabe on EDLINE and in the Media Center.
	Use ProQuest Reference Library. Articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers. Use Full-Text Search.
	SIRS Knowledge Source. Current events, U.S. government resources, arts and humanities, e-books, primary sources, and relevant Internet links.Username and password availabe on EDLINE and in the Media Center.
	Gale Student Resource Center Check out the Literature Seach in the Student Resource Center Gold. Username and password availabe on EDLINE and in the Media Center.

Internet

About the Writer: Mary Shelley

The Literature Network about Mary Shelley

Sources on Mary Shelley

Influences on Mary Shelley

Mary Wollenstonecraft

Galvanism

More on Galvanism

Industrial and Scientific Revolutions

NIH on Frankenstein and penetrating the secrets of nature

Gothic Landscapes, Horror Stories

Prometheus: Implications of Myth

Prometheus

Prometheus

Search Engines

• Web evaluation grid

Google--everyone's favorite search engine

• Tips for using Google efficiently
  • use Advanced Search and limit your domain to .edu, .gov, or .org
  • search within your initial results by clicking the "search within results" link at the bottom of the Google search page
• Within a particular document or site, use CTRL-F to find your key words

Google Scholar searches scholarly works at educational institutions

Kartoo is a visual search engine which searches a lot of results from various search engines (metasearch) and presents the results in an interactive style

Vivisimo is a clustering search engine, which organizes the results in categories

• Use a graphic organizer or note cards to arrange the information
  • Examples of graphic organizers
    • http://www.graphic.org/goindex.html
    • http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/graphic_org/ fill in the information and this tool will generate the organizer
  Summarize your findings
• Draw conclusions and inferences

• Decide the best medium to use to communicate the information (paper, PowerPoint, chart, poster, speech, etc.)
• Prepare first draft of a written paper or speech or script or storyboard
• Prepare a Works Cited page
• MLA Citation
• NoodleBib
• Writer's Inc.
• Online Citation http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html
• PowerPoint tips
  • Helpful site http://www.itc.virginia.edu/training/ppt/otc2004/PowerPoint_OTC2004.htm

• Revise your first draft (use teachers or friends to help go over the text)Revise again if necessaryPrepare your final productPresent the product to your audience
• Evaluate your process and product