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The American Dream : Noodletools - Citation & Research Tips

Guide created for Ms. Bowden's American Lit Junior Class

Information & Passwords

Below you will find tools to aid and guide you in completing your assignments. You are always welcome to come to the library to get help with citing sources, evaluating sources, choosing a database, and conducting research! 

NoodleTools

NoodleTools is an online research management platform that promotes critical thinking and authentic research. It will help you organize your  information, build accurate citations, archive source material, take notes, outline topics, and prepare to write. Need help creating an account? Watch this video.

NoodleTools has a couple of great Help pages with a wide array of detailed tutorials about how to use it: NoodleTools Help Desk and here: NoodleTools Support. 

If Noodletools does not appear to have a form that fits your particular source well (e.g., a primary source found on a website -- depending on the source, it may be difficult to use Noodletools to cite this kind of source properly), try this citation maker created by the Oregon School Library System, and select "Other" from the source type menu on the right. You can create a more thorough citation here, and then copy and paste it into Noodletools or alphabetically in your bibliography.

Research Tool

Tools to support finding, evaluating, and using information

Purdue Owl

The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.

What are Databases and why do you need them?

What are library databases? 

Adapted from Enoch Pratt Free Library

  • Library databases are like mini versions of the internet and provide access to carefully selected information sources. Ex: academic journals, magazines, newspapers. encyclopedias, videos, images, and other resources. 
  • Library databases are set up for you to customize your search in order to get the most relevant results
  • Library databases provide citation information
  • Library databases often contain full-text articles - you can print, save, email an entire article. 
  • There are different kinds of library databases: 

General Topics - Ex: Encyclopedia, Britannica, Gale OneFile

Specific Topics - Ex: Biography In Context, American History, Science Online

Evaluating Sources

Citing Sources

Plagiarism

Avoiding Plagiarism

Remember - it is perfectly acceptable to borrow information or ideas from other sources, but, when you do so, you have to let your audience know that’s what you’ve done. 

Any time you borrow someone else's work (words, images, video, audio) or ideas (info you didn't know before you saw it, even if it's paraphrased or re-interpreted) you MUST cite it (let your audience know which bits are borrowed). If you don't, you are plagiarizing, which is a serious issue. 

Unsure of what is considered plagiarism? WHS Academic Integrity Policy