You've picked your topic, created your concept map, compiled your list of keywords, and have created a focus statement with guiding questions and now you are ready to hit the books and the internet to get your resources. Or are you?
Here are the results of a quick search I did on Google for Joe DiMaggio.
The Search returned this result:
How are you prepared to deal with over 1.4 million search results? And do more results always mean better results? To make sense of what you are looking for, you must plan. Before you just jump into searching, you need to design a search plan and create a storage system that will protect you from accumulating huge mountains of information in hundreds of poorly named files. Here are some questions you will need to find answers to before you move on to the active searching:
What are the best of all sources for my topic?
Depending on your topic, your best sources could be in print, online, or in video or audio form. Before you begin, determine where it is you will find the most relevant, reliable, and readily available material to help you answer the questions behind your research.
What are all possible sources?: Internet, print, reference, databases, images, videos, audio recordings.
Which ones are applicable to your topic?
Think strategically about the best ways to find and organize pertinent and reliable informaiton
Because of the amount of information you can find on the internet, on online databases, and in various print sources, you will need a method of organization for your sources as you accumulate them.
Consider one or more of the following approaches:
Organization around key ideas, categories, and questions increases the likelihood that gathering will induce, provoke, and inspire thought.
Based on your identification of the most likely sources of information, you need to determine in what sequence you will do your searching.
You may choose to attack your least likely sources first to eliminate them for future searching; this will let you focus on richer and more valuable sources as you move through the process.
Planning
You've picked your topic, created your concept map, compiled your list of keywords, and have created a focus statement with guiding questions and now you are ready to hit the books and the internet to get your resources. Or are you?
Here are the results of a quick search I did on Google for Joe DiMaggio.
The Search returned this result:
How are you prepared to deal with over 1.4 million search results? And do more results always mean better results? To make sense of what you are looking for, you must plan. Before you just jump into searching, you need to design a search plan and create a storage system that will protect you from accumulating huge mountains of information in hundreds of poorly named files. Here are some questions you will need to find answers to before you move on to the active searching:
What are the best of all sources for my topic?
Depending on your topic, your best sources could be in print, online, or in video or audio form. Before you begin, determine where it is you will find the most relevant, reliable, and readily available material to help you answer the questions behind your research.
Think strategically about the best ways to find and organize pertinent and reliable informaiton
Because of the amount of information you can find on the internet, on online databases, and in various print sources, you will need a method of organization for your sources as you accumulate them.
Consider one or more of the following approaches:
Describe the sequence for gathering information