Research Tools and Tips

Select an Appropriate Topic:

• What are you passionate about?
• What do you want to learn more about?
• Is the topic appropriate for school?
• Is there enough information on your topic to complete the assignment sufficiently (at least 3 reliable sources)?

• Modify the words in your search to get different results (i.e. sports, imperialism VS effects of imperialism on sports VS how did imperialism affect soccer, VS colonialism AND sports)
• Use words like AND, NOT and OR (in all caps) to refine your search
• Use the Advanced Search feature in Google (under settings)
• Look beyond the first page of search results (people PAY $ to get on those pages!)
• Look at the URL address before you open a link. If the domain says .edu, .org or .gov it is likely to be more reliable
• Avoid blogs, crowd-sourced question and answer forums (like Quora or Reddit) and other student's school presentations (like Presi)
• Corroborate information from one source with additional sources
• Identify the author of the source and check that the date is current
• Be cautious of websites that have lots of ads, pop-ups or seem to be trying to sell you something
• Never download something from a website pop-up or advertisement

According to Council of Writing Program Administrators, "plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source" (n.d.).

To avoid plagiarism:

• Never copy and paste directly from the source
• Summarize, paraphrase or quote evidence from a source (for more on the difference between the three click HERE)
• Always include in-text citations when using evidence from someone else's work
• Always include the sources used in the list of References

• Create a folder in your Bookmarks for all of the websites that you find in your research (type Ctrl + Shift + O, select 'Organize', select 'Add folder...', name your folder (i.e. Passion Project)
• Bookmark any useful pages you find in your research and direct them to the designated folder

Citing Print Sources with a Known Author:

The author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).

Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).

Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).

Citing Print Sources with NO Known Author:

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name. Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire Web sites) and provide a page number if it is available.

We see so many global warming hotspots in North America likely because this region has "more readily accessible climatic data and more comprehensive programs to monitor and study environmental change . . ." ("Impact of Global Warming").

Citing Sources from the Internet:

• Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
• You do not need to give paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.

Source: Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)

Creating a Works Cited Page in MLA Format:

• Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper. It should have the same one-inch margins and last name, page number header as the rest of your paper.
• Label the page Works Cited (do not italicize the words Works Cited or put them in quotation marks) and center the words Works Cited at the top of the page.
• Double space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries.
• Indent the second and subsequent lines of citations by 0.5 inches to create a hanging indent.
• List page numbers of sources efficiently, when needed. If you refer to a journal article that appeared on pages 225 through 250, list the page numbers on your Works Cited page as 225-250. Note that MLA style uses a hyphen in a span of pages.
• If you're citing an article or a publication that was originally issued in print form but that you retrieved from an online database, you should type the online database name in italics. You do not need to provide subscription information in addition to the database name.
• For online sources, you should include a location to show readers where you found the source. Many scholarly databases use a DOI (digital object identifier). Use a DOI in your citation if you can; otherwise use a URL. Delete “http://” from URLs. The DOI or URL is usually the last element in a citation and should be followed by a period.
• All works cited entries end with a period.

Source: Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)

Online Citation Generators:

Citation Machine

Easy Bib

Examples:

Sample Works Cited Page

Sample Citations for a Variety of Sources

MLA Style Guide