Secondary students use the internet regularly, but they do not always know how to use it properly. Research should be taking place in every core subject in secondary school, at least once each school year.
Before beginning a research project with your students, it is important to explain plagiarism and what it means to be academically honest. In a WAC school culture it may not be important for every teacher to go over plagiarism prevention, but it is important to mention academic honesty in every class BEFORE it happens.
Often times teachers will only review plagiarism when they catch students using other writers' words or ideas without proper citation. By explaining how to summarize, paraphrase, and direct quote a source with proper citation, students are more likely to avoid plagiarizing.
The Cult of Pedagogy provides an excellent Mini Unit for secondary teachers to review these exact skills.
Click here for all of the resources.
Once students have had a chance to practice summarizing, paraphrasing, and direct quoting in at least one of their core classes, it’s then time to go over research strategies and source credibility.
The Literacy Ideas website offers some helpful tips for research strategies.
Click here for guidelines and videos to share with your students.
It’s also important to go over any online databases that your school may have for students to conduct research, and also show students how to use Wikipedia as a starting point for their research, but then ask them to use the references listed for their actual sources.
Lastly, have students use a source credibility checklist to determine if the sources they choose to use are trustworthy and accurate.
Click here for a Website Credibility Checklist handout for your students.
And if you would like your students to review source credibility terminology, have them study these Quizlet flashcards and play a few games.
The credibility of their sources should be checked by you, but students will have another chance to explain the credibility of each source in part two -- Research WAC: Annotated Bibliographies.