HOW TO FIND WHAT YOU NEED AND LOSE THE REST!

HOW TO FIND WHAT YOU NEED AND LOSE THE REST!

OR…. What is the best way to collect the information from your sources?

Step 1 Identification of keyword and related words in the researchable questions. Underline the keywords in your question and generate a list of related words. Brainstorm! Use your thesaurus!

Are these books useful? Check for keywords • Table of Contents • Index • Is there more than one page on the topic? • Scan a chapter

Step 2 Skim & Scan!!

To Skim: • Take in large chunks of text at one time. • Get an idea of the whole passage. • Don’t read every word!

To Scan: Quickly look over the material and try to pick out one specific point or keyword.

Read the first and last paragraphsof a document. • Read the first and last sentences of a paragraph.

Use the Find function (control F) to find a specific word or phrase. Ancient Astronomy

Now that you’ve found what you’ve been looking for… Image courtesy of www.leehansen.com

It’s time for….. USE OF INFORMATION!

What do you need?

You will need to take good notes to use in writing your paper.

There are three steps in note taking.

You’ve already done steps one and two: Finding Keywordsand Skimming and Scanning

Step 3 Extract the information AND Add your own thoughts

There are four types of notes: • Facts • Summaries • Paraphrased material • Quotations

Facts: Columbus sailed in 1492 The are 50 states in the USA George Washington was the first president of the United States You can copy and paste facts into your notes. Remember to record the citation information. You will need this for a parenthetical citation and your works cited page.

To Summarize: Read a large section for overall meaning and put into one or two sentences. Remember to record the citation information, including the page number. You will need this for a parenthetical citation and your works cited page.

To Paraphrase: Put large amounts of information into your own words. This is good for supporting information, biographical information, predictions, hypothesis, and drawing conclusions Remember to record the citation information, including the page number. You will need this for a parenthetical citation and your works cited page.

To Quote: Quotations are used for one or two sentence statements that prove a point or reveal an attitude. Use quotations to back up your own thoughts and comments. Don’t forget the quotation marks so you remember that you quoted the material! Remember to record the citation information., including the page number!You will need this for a parenthetical citation and your works cited page.

Based on: Jansen, Barbara. “Reading for Information: The Trash-N-Treasure Method of Teaching Note-Taking.” 16 Oct. 2006. 16 Nov. 2007. http://www.big6.com/showarticle.php?id=45 So let’s pull apart the text! Tomasino, Christine. “Trash-n-Treasure to Build Comprehension: Pulling Apart the Text by Annotating Slides in PowerPoint.” 16 Nov. 2007. www.efriendlylearning.com/presentations/reading/Annotatingwtrashtreasure.ppt -

Describe personal characteristics that led to Edison being a great inventor.

Thomas Alva Edison lit up the world with his invention of the electric light. Without him, the world might still be a dark place. However, the electric light was not his only invention. He also invented the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and over 1,200 other things. About every two weeks he created something new. Thomas A. Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11, 1847. His family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, when he was seven years old. Surprisingly, he attended school for only two months. His mother, a former teacher, taught him a few things, but Thomas was mostly self-educated. His natural curiosity led him to start experimenting at a young age with electrical and mechanical things at home.

When he was 12 years old, he got his first job. He became a newsboy on a train that ran between Port Huron and Detroit. He set up a laboratory in a baggage car of the train so that he could continue his experiments in his spare time. Unfortunately, his first work experience did not end well. Thomas was fired when he accidentally set fire to the floor of the baggage car. Thomas then worked for five years as a telegraph operator, but he continued to spend much of his time on the job conducting experiments. He got his first patent in 1868 for a vote recorder run by electricity. However, the vote recorder was not a success. In 1870, he sold another invention, a stock-ticker, for $40,000. A stock-ticker is a machine that automatically prints stock prices on a tape. He was then able to build his first shop in Newark, New Jersey.

Thomas Edison was totally deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other, but thought of his deafness as a blessing in many ways. It kept conversations short, so that he could have more time for work. He called himself a "two-shift man" because he worked 16 out of every 24 hours. Sometimes he worked so intensely that his wife had to remind him to sleep and eat. Thomas Edison died at the age of 84 on October 18, 1931, at his estate in West Orange, New Jersey. He left numerous inventions that improved the quality of life all over the world. “The Light Bulb.” Feb. 2007. 16 Nov. 2007. www.parentsintouch.co.uk/Newsletters/February07/Comprehension%20for%20Key%20stage%202Light%20Bulb.doc

Now that you have your notes, you must give credit where credit is due!

Parenthetical Citations In MLA style, in-text citations, called parenthetical citations, are used to document any external sources used within a document (unless the material cited is considered general knowledge). LEO: Literacy Education Onlinehttp://leo.stcloudstate.edu/research/mlaparen.html

Examples from MLA Formatting and Style Guide - The OWL at Purdue

Your Works Cited will be a list of just those resources cited in your paper….the ones from which you took ideas and quotes. Your Bibliography will be a list of all resources you used for the project.

ASIJ’s Works Cited Page Here you will find examples of bibliographic and parenthetical citations. There are also links to other resources and examples on the Web.

A works cited page might look like this: “The Light Bulb.” Feb. 2007. 16 Nov. 2007. www.parentsintouch.co.uk// Newsletters/February07Comprehension%20for%20Key%20 stage%202Light%20Bulb.doc Cobb, Jodi. Thomas Edison. 2nd ed. New York: Knopf, 1997 Wilson, Henrietta. “The Life of Edison.” Atlantic Magazine Feb 1998: 14-19. EBSCOHost. American School in Japan. 8 Dec. 2002 <http://ehostvgw10.epnet.com/ehost1.asp?key=>.

Your parenthetical citations would look like this: Thomas Edison was a very creative man who invented over a thousand new items (“The Light Bulb”). He did most of this in his laboratory in Orange New Jersey ( Wilson) where he worked virtually undisturbed because he was hard of hearing (“The Light Bulb”). In her biography of Edison, Jodi Cobb says he built his laboratory intending it to be “the best and by far the largest laboratory in the world” (25).

Pirate clipart courtesy of http://www.free-clipart-pictures.net Beach PPT template courtesy of Nan Shastrywww.brainybetty.com/scrapbooking_pages.htm

HOW TO FIND WHAT YOU NEED AND LOSE THE REST!