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LIBR 100 Introduction to Information Research Spring 2008

		Syllabus Lesson 1: ONLINE RESEARCH IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE due Friday, Feb 13 Lesson 2: FINDING BOOKS due Friday, Feb 27 Lesson 3: WEB DATABASES due Friday, Mar13 Lesson 4: FINDING WEBSITES due Friday, Mar 27 Lesson 5: EVALUATING INFORMATION SOURCES due Friday, Apr 17 Lesson 6: ETHICAL ISSUES IN ONLINE RESEARCH due Friday, May 1 Sorry, but students who fall more than one lesson behind will be dropped from the course. (Some students have different deadlines, depending on when they entered the class) Final Project, first draft: DUE FRIDAY, May 8 Final Project, second draft: DUE FRIDAY, May 15 Final Exam: please take between MONDAY, May 18th and WEDNESDAY, May 27   Once you have finished all six lessons, you are ready to do the Final Project, which I hope you will enjoy. It's meant to be the cherry on top of your ice cream sundae -- the final touch that shows me (and, more importantly, yourself!) what you have learned in this course. For your final project, you will create a bibliography based on your research question and research you have done in previous assignments. The bibliography will be saved as a web page and you will create links to all online sources that you cite. This project is worth 70 points. See below for grading criteria. The bibliography must include the following: · Your research question. · Search Worksheet: Include a general search worksheet for your research question (as shown in the Model Bibliography). · Citations for sources (books, articles and web pages or web sites) relevant to your research question. NUMBER AND TYPES OF SOURCES REQUIRED: List at least 7 sources relevant to your research question and arrange them in MLA bibliographic format (in alphabetical order) as explained in the Tutorial: Basic Principles of MLA Style for a Bibliography. Minimum requirements for different types of sources that must be included within the total of 7: At least 1 source should be a book. Example: McChesney, Robert Waterman. Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle against Corporate Media. New York: Seven Stories, 2002. Note: Even if you find information for a book from a web site or a periodical article, you should still only provide the book information; do not include information for the web page or periodical article. (The only exception to this is if you are citing an online book, in which case you should follow the examples shown on Skyline Library’s “Citing Sources” page.) At least 2 sources should be magazine or journal articles (more scholarly journals are preferred, but this will depend on the topic.) Example: Alter, Jonathan. "Big Media Gets Even Bigger: Should You Worry about Megacorporate Journalism?" Newsweek 24 Jan. 2000: 42. Expanded Academic ASAP. Thompson Gale. Skyline College Library. 18 Mar. 2006. <http://infotrac.galegroup.com>. If the topic is a current or recent issue, at least 1 source should be a newspaper article. Example: Epstein, Edward. "Congress Tries to Put Clamps on Media Mergers: Anger at FCC Ruling Brings Calls for Laws, but Satisfying Bush, Both Houses Difficult." San Francisco Chronicle 14 Oct. 2003: A6. Full Text Newspapers. Thompson Gale. Skyline College Library. 21 Mar. 2004. <http://infotrac.galegroup.com>. At least 2 sources should be web pages. Example: Shah, Hemant. "Journalism in an Age of Mass Media Globalization." International Development Studies Network. 6 Nov. 2000. IDSNet. 5 Mar. 2004. <http://www.idsnet.org/Papers/Communications/HEMANT_SHAH.HTM>. Additional sources (to add up to a total of at least 7) may be any type of source. DIRECTIONS FOR CREATING YOUR WEB PAGE Organize the citations for all of the required sources into a single list in alphabetical order using MLA format following the directions below (using the Model Bibliography as a template). This is the same as writing a paper with Microsoft Word except you will save your file as a web page and you will create hyperlinks to web pages and to articles from databases, as explained below. To develop your final project into a web page, you should: Go to the Model Bibliography webpage Save the Model Bibliography webpage to a location on your computer (on the desktop or in a folder that you will remember) or, if you are using a computer at school, on a floppy disk or a USB flash drive. When saving, change the file name to: yourlastname.html (use your real last name for yourlastname) and in Internet Explorer, change "Save as Type" to: Web page, html only (*.htm, *.html) This gives you a basic outline of the final project web page into which you can copy or enter your data. Start Microsoft Word and then open this file using the File—Open command. (Do not try to open the file directly from the directory of files on your computer—if you try to do this, it will open as a web page and will not be able to be edited.) Delete the data from the model project, but keep the search worksheet. Copy or enter the data for your research question. Create hyperlinks for your sources by following the instructions below: a. Copy the URL (web address) for the webpage or article in the appropriate place at the end of a citation. (Remember, do not include a URL for books unless they are online books.) Be sure to always start a URL with: http:// and end with a space. If you follow step a. correctly, Microsoft Word should automatically make the address a hyperlink and this will be indicated by the URL becoming blue underlined letters. If this does not work for some reason, or if you want to make any other words that do not start with http:// into a hyperlink, follow steps b - d below. b. Highlight the URL or other words that you want to make into a hyperlink. c. Use the Insert pull-down menu and click on Hyperlink (Ctrl-K is a short cut) d. In the box that says "Address," enter the URL (web address) for the webpage or article you want to link to. Be sure to always start a URL with: http:// NOTE: For database articles that have very long URLs (e.g. an InfoTrac article address such as: <http://find.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/802/768/34930836w6/purl=3!ar_fmt?sw_aep=plan_skyline> ), you may shorten the URL for your bibliography (e.g., <http://find.galegroup.com> ), but you must include the complete URL in the hyperlink address box. SUBMIT ASSIGNMENT E-mail your final project web page—saved in Word as a web page (*.html file)—as an attached file to: Dave Patterson at pattersond@smccd.edu If you are not sure how to send an email message with an attachment, please contact me for help. GRADING CRITERIA Your final project is worth 70 points. These are the criteria used to evaluate your project: 1) Are the information sources included in your bibliography relevant to your topic? 2) Are the citations presented according to correct MLA style – in terms of both formatting and punctuation? 3) Is the overall bibliography free of typographical errors, and in general, produced and presented with care? Final Exam, Make a 45 minute appointment with your instructor to take the Final.
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