Research and Information Fluency: Grades 6-8

How to Cite a Site

Download Student Sheet(s) for printout in PDF format.

Read a Letter to Educators about Internet research and information fluency from CyberSmart!

Overview

Students learn how to write bibliographic citations for online sources following the style recommended by the Modern Language Association.

Objectives

  • Interpret bibliography citations for professional sites, online newspaper and magazine articles, online reference databases, and home pages
  • Recall that citations should be recorded as each site is used

National Educational Technology Standards for Students © 2007

Source: International Society for Technology in Education
  1. Research and Information Fluency
    1. plan strategies to guide inquiry.
    2. locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.

Home Connection

Download the Home Connection sheet related to this lesson.

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Materials

  • Activity sheets (2)
  • Online computer access

Introduce (offline)

  • Tell students that, if they choose sources carefully, cyberspace can be a great place to collect the information they need to write a report.
  • Have them relate some online sources of information that they may have used to write reports.
  • Discuss and define "bibliography." (a list describing the sources used for a report) Point out that a bibliography should include all sources from which students took information—online as well as offline.

Teach 1 (offline)

  • Distribute the activity sheets.
  • Explain that the angle brackets < and >, used before and after the URL, are on the comma and period keys of their keyboards.
  • Tell students they should provide two dates for each source: the date the source was last updated or "published" and the date the student used the site for research.
  • Ask: What generalizations can you make about punctuating the elements of any online citation? (use periods after most elements in the citation; cite two different dates; use angle brackets around the URL)

Teach 2 (online)

  • Take students to www.becybersmart.org or www.cybersmartcurriculum.org, click on Student Links, and then click on the diamond.
  • Assign each student or group of students one Web page.
  • Using the examples on the activity sheets as a guide, have them determine which type of site it is and then write a bibliographic citation.
  • Have students compare citations to make sure they are complete and accurate.

Assess (offline)

The following items assess student mastery of the lesson objectives.

  • Ask: What kinds of information should be included in a bibliography of online sources? (author, name of site, name of sponsor, date updated or published, dates used by student, and the site's URL in brackets)
  • Ask: Why is it better to record your citations as you do research, rather than waiting until the report is finished? (If you wait, then you may forget what sites you visited, when you visited them, and what page in the site you used.)

Extend (online)

The following activity can be added for students who completed this lesson in a previous grade.

  • Have students collaborate to create a bibliography on a theme of their choice. They should search for useful Web sites, then organize their citations into a single bibliography to distribute throughout the school.

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