Research+Toolbox+for+Self-Directed+Learning+Unit

As you engage in research for your self-directed learning project, use the following tool to guide your process:


 * Step One: Planning the Strategies to Guide your Search (SEARCH) **
 * Step Two: ** ** Locating Relevant and Useful Information (SEARCH) **
 * Step Three: ** ** Organizing and Managing Information (RESEARCH) **
 * Step Four: Reading, Understanding, and Synthesizing Information (RESEARCH) **
 * Step Five: Using Information Responsibly and Ethically (RESEARCH) **

Using this process and these tools will increase your efficiency and effectiveness in your search and research activities on the web.


 * Planning the Strategies to Guide your Search: ** Use the steps and tools below to make your ** search ** more productive from the beginning.
 * __Generate the question that you want to answer.__
 * To what extent is individualism an important part of the American identity?
 * Do not put this is the search box. Instead.....
 * __Pull out key search terms from your question:__
 * individualism, American, identity
 * __Use thesaurus.com to generate synonyms for these terms__
 * individualism: uniqueness, individuality, individual expression, singularity, independence
 * American: United States, America
 * identity: character, personality, spirit
 * Now you have some search terms to start your search, and you can move to the next step.


 * Locating Relevant and Useful Information: ** You are ready to start ** searching ** ...well, almost ready. Use the tools below to limit the number of results to the most useful ones.


 * Remember to use quotation marks to group phrases together
 * "American identity" will search for the words on the page together
 * American identity with no quotes will search each work independently (producing more results)
 * BOOLEAN terms (AND, OR +, and -) can be useful in helping to limit your results as well
 * Use extensions (.edu, .gov, .org) to filter sites by type or by where they originated
 * filter sites by type using these extensions (Use site:.edu in the search bar to limit to .edu sites, for example)
 * filter sites by country of origin using these extensions


 * Use advanced search options in Google to limit results further.
 * Advanced Key Term Search
 * Advanced Image Search
 * Choose "usage rights" to filter images based on those that can be shared or republished


 * Explore these alternatives to Google for a different search experience:
 * exalead.com: advanced search options directly on search page, visual component to search
 * metacrawler.com: searches ALL of the search engines, meaning comprehensive results
 * infomine.com: search the invisible web of databases and other documents with this search tool


 * Organizing and Managing Information: ** So, you've found some useful information. How will you manage and organize your ** research ** materials to keep track of them for future use?


 * Use your Evernote account to manage the websites and media elements that you find useful. Use notebooks and tags to organize materials and add notes to remind yourself what it pertains to and why you wanted to remember it.
 * Make information come to you! Create an e-mail alert in Google News.


 * Reading, Understanding, and Synthesizing Information: ** Information is only useful when you understand how it relates to your ** research ** topic. What digital tools can help in this important process?
 * Use an online highlighter like this one to capture specific phrases and ideas that relate to your research topic. You may share this page with others by copying and pasting the new url into an e-mail or website.
 * Summarizing the information briefly in a note or a Google Doc can also be helpful. Don't feel like writing a summary of the article? Usevocaroo.com to record a brief sound file. Save this to Evernote.


 * Using Information Responsibly and Ethically: ** A good researcher follows the rules of the road when using the information that he or she finds. You should properly cite media and information; it is intellectual property, just like a book from the library or a photograph hanging in a museum.
 * **Works Cited:** Install the easybib extension in your browser, and click to have the extension create a citation for you. Don't forget to fill in some of the details yourself. This will help you create citations suitable for your works cited page.
 * **Parenthetical Citations:** Confused about how to parenthetically cite web-based materials? Click here: parenthetical citations for more information on how to do this, including how to parenthetically cite websites that do not indicate an author.
 * **Citing Images:** It is best to put a brief image credit below near the image that you are using (in addition to putting the information in your works cited. This image credit should contain as much of the following information as possible: Title, Artist, Date, url


 * Following this process and using the tools in this toolbox will help you search and research more productively. If you remind yourself to use this process, it will become a natural part of your searching and researching habits! **