Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Who told you?

Writing citations becomes the bane of any student.
  • Getting the correct information (author, tittle, publisher, pages, URL if an electronic source).
  • Putting those facts in the right order with punctuation that matches the citation format (MLA, APA, etc.)
  • Alphabetizing the sources for the bibliography

It is important to know who told you the information so you can judge if the information is likely to be accurate.

I learned about Answer Boards yesterday - places where you can ask a question and strangers will post a response. Yahoo!Answers and Wiki Answers are two sources students have been using for their "research". Here's a list of other Answer Boards.

Did you know your Librarian will assist you in finding the answers? Some large libraries have teams of Reference Librarians who will find the answers for you. Librarians are concerned that inaccurate (wrong) information is being posted online.

Ask your Librarian - they do have access to authoritative resources- and they'll tell you where the information came from!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In addition, Answers.com - the same people who bring you WikiAnswers - has a 1-pager for download about proper MLA formatting for Internet resources. See it here: http://educator.answers.com/main/education_citations.jsp

Liz
Answers.com/WikiAnswers

The Librarian said...

Thank you for sharing that link, Liz

-Kate, the Librarian