Ethical Research Infographic
Elena Y.
Gathering Relevant Information (Paper or Digital)
Some of the more reliable resources available to you include...(Digital)
- .gov (The most reliable)
- .edu (Pretty reliable)
- .org (Mostly reliable)
- Ebsco Hoist
- CIA World Factbook
- Morgue File
- mymcpl.org (My Mid Continent Public Library)
- Encyclopedia Britannica
- CultureGrams
- SIRS Issue Researcher
You can always check your school's website to see what they have listed for good researching websites!
Hard Copy
- Go to your public or school library and ask the librarians for a book with your topic
- Make sure you know how your library is organized (i.e 549 TOL)
- Be sure that you can find your specific topic in the table of contents of the book
- Utilize guidelines given to you to help you find a good book
Research Questions to get Relevant Information:
- Do an advanced search to eliminate any irrelevant topics
- Use ctrl+f to find words in a website to check if the website is relevant
- In your research question, make sure it isn't too broad
- Be specific, for example if you type in Dolphins to Google, instead of the animal it could pop up with the football team.
- Make sure you can actually answer your research question
- A good research question gets you an easy pre-write
- Your research question should be able to explain your whole piece
Using Search terms (Keywords) Effectively
- Make sure that you do an advanced search, this way you can add in more keywords
- Be specific, nothing too broad. Otherwise you won't find relevant information. (i.e instead of just typing in 'Dolphins' into Google, type in 'Dolphin Animal', otherwise you might get the football team)
- Ebsco Host has an advanced search where you can add something to where you can say: 'Eagles' then you can use the option to put 'Not Sports Teams'
- If you find a website but don't want to scroll to find the needed information, do ctrl+f to find certain keywords.
How to Decide if a Website or Resource is Credible/Accurate
- Check the URL, if it's something like blogspot.com then it is very likely that it won't be credible, however if its something like .gov then it is very credible.
- See if the author is well known for having good information and accuracy.
- If the website is by a large company (i.e Apple), then it is usually always credible
- The most reliable URL's are generally .gov, .edu, and .org
- If the website has lots of ads, then it most likely is credible. (i.e an official website like Apple has no ads)
- Check to see if big companies are sponsoring the website, it is more likely to be credible and accurate
The Differences Between Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing
Quoting:
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- Quoting is when you take an author's exact words and put them into ", "
- You don't change anything at all
- You cite the author's information after, usually in parentheses
- If you don't cite the author's information after, it's plagiarizing
- Quotes should never be more than 50% of your paper, if they are more than 50% of it it is considered plagiarizing
Paraphrasing:
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- Paraphrasing is taking an author's words and changing the order, the words, but not the meaning of them, to put into your essay/piece
- With paraphrasing you still have to cite your source.
- If you don't paraphrase properly with enough changes, then it is considered plagiarizing
- If you seem to altar the author's real meaning then it is considered plagiarizing
- Paraphrasing is NOT just changing a few words
- Paraphrasing is NOT just changing order
- You must change both order and words, remove words, and add words in order to make it a proper paraphrase.
Summarizing:
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- Summarizing is putting the author's main ideas in your own words
- It only focuses on the main points/ideas
- The summarizing must still be cited
- The summary should cover all of the story
- If the reader hasn't read what story you summarized, then they should be able to get a good general idea of what it was about
What Plagiarizing is and How to Avoid it
The General Definition of Plagiarism: Presenting words, ideas, images, sounds, or the creative expressions of others as your own.
The Two Types Of Plagiarism
Intentional Examples
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- Copying a friends work
- Borrowing or Buying a paper
- Cutting or pasting text directly into your paper
- Completely typing a full paragraph copied in
Unintentional Examples
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- Poor paraphrasing
- Poor citation or forgetting to cite
- Using too many quotes (More than 50% of the paper is just quotes
Consequences for Plagiarism
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- F on the assignment
- Suspension or expulsion from school
- Dismissal from school or sports activities
- Prison (For government officials only)
MLA Citation
- MLA Citation stands for Modern Language Association
- MLA Citation includes sponsor or publisher names, publishing dates, special abbreviations, and n.d. when no publication dates are provided
- Include a URL (Optional)
- Page numbers
- Article name in quotation marks
- Editor and author names
- Title of the website, project, or book in italics
- Publisher name and date