BRAINSTORM KEYWORDS AND RESOURCES
What do you already know about your site?(This is brainstorming keywords)
- Where is it?
- Think in generals and specifics: City/Town/Site Name <--> Cape Cod <--> Massachusetts <--> Northeastern United States
- What are the qualities of the site?
- Historic event?
- Geologic feature?
- Plant? Animal? Famous Person?
- Make a list of your keywords on your notes document or a separate piece of paper. Remember, you can always add to this list or cross off keywords that are not helpful.
Think about your location type...
- What type of resource will have the information that you want?
- Tour guide? Historical? Scientific?
- What type of author are you hoping to find? How do you evaluate the information on each?
- Official location
- Government
- For-profit tour company
- Conservation or environmental protection agency
- Private person's personal website
- Expert scientist
- Expert historian
USE YOUR KEYWORDS, EVALUATE YOUR SOURCE AND EXTRACT YOUR INFORMATION
Find a source of information:
- Be efficient and effective and start with these provided resources!
- Go to your source and look for your keywords in the index, on the page (ctrl/cmnd-F)
- If you are using a search engine:
- Do you want to use multiple words?
- What order?
- Tweak your keywords: more general? more specific? synonyms? are you using the words an expert would use?
- Remember: don't use sentences! Think about how the page you want to find would be written
Is this really a good source?
If it answers your question and has your information, evaluate the source to make sure that it is good (accurate, etc.)
Remember Rr/aAPT --
- READABILITY: If you can't understand the source, you can't take notes and put it into your own words! STOP and pick another source -- this isn't a bad thing. Remember -- it might be written for college students!
- RESPONSE/ANSWER: Make sure it answers your question. If it doesn't, maybe you can be empathetic and share it with another group.
- AUTHOR: Evaluate the author -- why is this person or organization an expert that you can trust?
- PURPOSE: What is the purpose of the source? Does it have an opinion? Want you to do something?
- TIME: When was it updated? Does it say when it was updated? (Does it matter?)
Making notes:
- Add your source to your source list BEFORE you start making notes!
- Use the ToC, index, and ctrl/cmnd-F to find the exact places in the source that have your information.
- Write down or type up the important facts in your own words -- remember you do not need compete sentences!
