Fitchburg State College Research Help - Writing 2 Shortcuts

Bias Poll

If an article is biased it is...

Mind Mapping

It is important to narrow down your topic to find the topic you are really interested in. This will allow you to get better results when you do research. It will help you narrow the results down to the most appropriate articles, books and websites. Use these mind mapping tools to help you with the process.

Mind Mapping Your Topic

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What is RefWorks

RefWorks is our fantastic citation manager. It helps you track the sources you are using for your research so you can easily create in-text citations and work cited lists. You can use RefWorks to:

Organize references
Format bibliographies in your prefered style
Create a personal database of you own selected references
import references automatically from many library databases and any webpage
Properly cite web pages in any format like ALA, APA, Chicago and many more
Use Write-N-Cite to insert in-text citations, footnotes and your bibliography as you write
Share your sources with your group or anyone else interested in your topic

Use RefWorks Now

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MLA Citation Style

Feel free to ask the librarians for help with creating source citations for your paper. Here is a guide to help you create citations for the most common resources:

Diana Hacker's MLA Style Guide

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Find Movie Reviews

Movie Review Query Engine

The Movie Review Query Engine is the largest online database for movie reviews.
Lexis-Nexis

Search the newspapers in Lexis-Nexis for published movie reviews.
Communication and Mass Media Complete

does scholarly articles and reviews of some movies.

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Finding News, Magazine and Academic Articles

These tools are great to use for research in your Writing 2 class.

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Evaluating Sources

As with any resource used or documents identified, it is important to think critically about the information presented and not to be 'distracted' by the presentation or marketing of the information. Anyone can publish a web page and, therefore, the quality of information varies.

Checklist for Evaluating Web Sources

When you find a webpage you want to use, go over the following checklist to insure that the page is a quality one.

I. Authority	Is there an author? Is the author qualified? An expert? What organization is responsible for the content? Is the sponsor of the page reputable? How reputable? Is there a link to information about the author or the sponsor? If the page includes neither an author nor indicates a sponsor, is there any other way to determine its origin? Look for a header or footer showing affiliation. Look at the URL Look at the domain. .edu, .com, .ac.uk, .org, .net
	Rationale Anyone can publish anything on the web. It is often hard to determine a web page's authorship. Even if a page has an author, qualifications are not usually provided. Sponsorship is not always indicated. The domain tells you a lot about the type of page
II. Accuracy	Is the information reliable and error-free? Is there an editor or someone who verifies/checks the information?
	Rationale Anyone can publish anything on the web Unlike traditional print resources, web resources rarely have editors or fact-checkers. Currently, no web standards exist to ensure accuracy.
III. Objectivity	Does the information show a minimum of bias? Is the page designed to sway opinion? Is there any advertising on the page? Look at the domain. .edu, .com, .ac.uk, .org, .net a .com is probably trying to sell you something a .net usually means the .com was already in use a .org is an non-profit organization. They are still trying to sell something even if they aren't making money. .ac .uk and others are for specific countries .edu is for schools and colleges. Some colleges and universities give students webspace. .gov is a government webpage.
	Rationale Frequently the goals of the sponsors/authors are not clearly stated. Often the Web serves as a virtual soapbox.
IV. Currency	Is the page dated? If so, when was the last update? How current are the links? Have some expired or moved?
	Rationale Publication or revision dates are not always provided. If a date is provided, it may have various meanings. For example, It may indicate when the material was first written It may indicate when the material was first placed on the Web. It may indicate when the material was last revised.
V. Coverage	What topics are covered? What does this page offer that is not found elsewhere? What is its intrinsic value? How in-depth is the material?
	Rationale Web coverage often differs from print coverage. Frequently, it's difficult to determine the extent of coverage of a topic from a web page. The page may or may not include links to other web pages or print references. Sometimes web information is "just for fun", a hoax, someone's personal expression that may be of interest to no one, or even outright silliness.