Several of my classes are in the process of writing research papers. One of my rules is that students have to use sources that have an author. To put it plainly, this makes the research hard to do. I have encouraged students to use Ebscohost, as the resources found here will always have an author.
This works well for many students, but when someone wants to write a paper on snowmobiles, this using Ebscohost becomes problematic. There are not a whole lot of good journal articles explaining how a snowmobile runs or which brand is the best. In this case, Ebsco just doesn’t work.
Students are going to have to look elsewhere on the web. The best means I have found to find good resources from the web is to type in a search term (whatever that might be) and then put “mag” or “magazine” behind it. This has brought great results for the students in my class. There are a bunch of online magazines out there on almost any topic imaginable. Many of these list the authors with the articles giving students an at least half decent source.
At the moment, if my students can find anything on the web with an author, I am satisfied. At least is shows that they did some work in trying to find good information before copying down their notes. Including “magazine” in the search term has helped out tremendously.
Doing this has kind of been my “Aha!” moment for the week and maybe the month!
So simple. So useful.
My class is researching products for an economics unit. This is perfect for them. Thanks.