We discussed in class today the importance of good research skills. Researching well will help you write a better paper. Hopefully we now know more about plagiarism and understand how to properly cite and paraphrase sources.
Remember the importance of evaluating websites. Look for:
- a bibliography
- author
- a credible source (like a university)
- keep in mind when it was last updated
We also discussed academic vs. non-academic sources. Academic sources are things like journals that have been peer-reviewed. While Wikipedia can be a good starting point, keep in mind it is open-source and should not be used in your paper. Go to the original source for information. Here are a couple of sources for finding journal articles:
http://www.doaj.org/ and
http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/dean/peer_reviewed.htm You can also go on the library wiki site
http://libertyhslibrary.wikispaces.com/Before+you+go+a-Googlen%27 and try the Gale search engine, specifically the Criminal Justice one.
And maybe one of your best discoveries today for this paper,
Google Scholar.
Remember to keep a list of your sources linked to your notes. General formatting guidelines for APA can be found here:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ Remember that Word can do citations and keep a bibliography for you.
If you don't have Word on your computer,
OpenOffice is an open-source free word processing program.
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