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Alrighty, you are not supposed to have a header on the first page of your paper.  For this discussion, we are going to say that the first page of your paper IS the first page of your paper - not your title page, ok?

Hello, hello.  Hello?  Anyone out there?  Would someone please leave a comment?  Is anyone reading these words of wisdom?

(You did paste your Works Cited page in as the last page of your paper, didn’t you?  Well, you were supposed to.  It should be the last page of your paper and it should start at the very, very, very top of the page.  And the header should be on this page.)

Go ahead and print JUST page one of your paper BEFORE adding the header.  Go to file, print, and check the circle for pages and enter “1″ in the box.  Of course, if you are ON page one of your paper you can go to file, print, and check the circle for “current page” so that just your first page prints.

It has no header.

Now.  Add your header.

Print the remainder of your paper.  Go to file, print, and check the circle for pages and enter “2-X” —- X being the number of pages you have.  If you have six pages you’d put “2-6″ in that space.

That was not difficult was it?  Good luck, people.  It’s time like these that make me glad I’m old.

Read this post. 

It takes a few steps and alot of copying and pasting, but you do not have to retype your paper if you’ve typed all your notecards into Noodle. 

1. Arrange your notecards in Noodle in the correct order
2. “Print” your notecards to a full sheet of paper - you’re not actually printing them out on a real piece of paper - you’re “printing” them to a full sheet of paper ON THE COMPUTER !
3. Save and name that document as “rough” or “notes” or something
4. Copy and paste your parenthetical reference citations for all your sources to the top of your notecard page (get those from the Bibliography page of Noodle)
5. Make some edits to this notecard page:

• Edit, select all
• Format, font, Times New Roman 12 or whatever is required for your paper
• Format, paragraph, line spacing, double
• Format, bulleting, choose the second option
• Format, bulleting, choose “none” 

These changes will make copying and pasting your notecards into your paper much easier.

Now, keep going . . .

1. Open a new doc, change the margins, font, and space to what’s required for your paper, save it.  This will be your research paper !
2. Since your must cite your sources within the body of your paper, start with your notecard page and look at your first paraphrase or quote … whatever the first note is.  Look at it’s source.  Where did you get that information?
3. Ok, now scroll to the top of your page and look for that source in those little parenthetical references you copied.  See it?  Great.  Copy the parenthetical reference, it’ll be in (  ).  You should have pasted in both ( ) and the “.” at the end of the parenthetical reference.  Copy all of that and paste it in at the end of your note making sure your end punctuation is correct - don’t wanna have two periods.
4.  Now you’re ready to copy your note to your paper.  But, what I’d do if I were you … instead of “copying” all your notes from your notecard page, I’d “cut” them.  That way they’re gone once you use them once and you won’t accidently copy anything twice.  I’d cut all the headings and stuff out of the notecard page along the way, too; I wouldn’t want to even look at it !!! It’s not going into your paper.

While you’re copying and pasting all those notecards (that you wrote in your own words !!!) make sure that once you paste into the new paper that everything lines up with the left margin.  What I copied ont the new document scooted away from that left margin just a little bit.  It was like it indented it a little bit.  We don’t want that.  To fix it, just click in front of the first word in that section and hit the backspace key.  It moves the whole section back over to the left margin.  Hope that made sense.

I highly recommend that you hit the save button regularly throughout your copying process!

Once you have your entire set of notecards copied and pasted into your paper, go back through reading and adding transitions to make your paper smoother. 

Go.  Make it so. 

Log in, open your list and this puts you on the Bibliography page.  Click the print button (see illustration below.)

Mrs. Reeves students:  On the Italics/Underlining line … click “underlining” … and change it to italics.

Click Export and Print (it’s in green font at the bottom of your screen.)

You’ll get the white bar toward the top that’ll flash blue when you scroll over it.  Scroll on top of it and when it’s blue click and choose “download file.”  If you don’t see this blue bar … don’t worry about it.  Keep going to the next step.

Choose SAVE.

Name your file and save it somewhere you’ll be able to find it later!

If you want to see your Works Cited page choose OPEN and look at it.  If you don’t wanna see it right now, just click close.  REMEMBER WHERE YOU SAVED IT so you can find it later!  We named them our name and “workscited” in class.  For example, harrypotterworkscited. 

Inserting this into your paper later …

After you type your paper and you’re at the end of your paper:

• hit the enter key until you get to a new page in your paper
• open this Works Cited file
• copy the whole thing including the title
• now paste it onto that new page in your paper

This way it’ll get the header that you’re required to put in your paper.  Confused?  Good.  jk (just kidding)

The Big Picture

You’ve created about 35 notecards in Noodle or you have about 35 handwritten cards.  Now you need to wind up with a 5-6 page double-spaced Times New Roman 12 pt. paper.  What are you going to do with all those notecards?

Sort them.  You need to make categories for them similar to the Roman numerals on your outline. 

Remember the biography paper example?  Make a stack of cards for family, another for education/training, and another for accomplishments/awards.  Three stacks.  Three categories.  Three clusters.  This first sorting is your Roman numerals. The first clusters you’ll create are going to match the Roman numerals on your outline.  These are your major categories of information.

I.   Introduction

II.  Family

III. Education and training

IV. Accomplishments and awards

V. Conclusion

That gives you about 10-12 notecards in each stack.  Well, you can’t put all 10 notecards into one paragraph.  You should have an average of 3-4 sentences per notecard.  That would be a whopper paragraph!

Check out your Noodle notecard screen. 

Look at how many notecards you have for each cluster.  You probably need to break that down further if you have too many notecards to fit into one paragraph.

So, take your family stack.  Separate it into like  topics.  One stack of family cards could be early family: father, mother, birth, brothers & sisters, where he/she grew up, stories from childhood.  The second stack could be married and later life: wife, kids, where they lived, where/when he/she died … I can’t see making a third stack out of family, but you get the idea.  This example gives you two clusters.

I.   Introduction

II.  Family

     A.  Early family

     B.  Married and later life

One Roman numeral would be Family, “A” would be Early family, and “B” would be Married and later life.   Most of the time each stack will make a paragraph, but nothing is cut and dry.  You can’t say definitely each capital letter in an outline is one paragraph.  Depends on how many facts you have. 

Go forth and sort.  Start with your big broad topics.  Read the notecards for each of those major Roman numeral clusters.  How can you  break them down?  If you had a Roman numeral for Family, it’s a possibility you might not have enough information to divide it any further.  If you only have 3 notecards about family, then you don’t need to break it down.

Your outline is a grade, but the clusters are just to help you organize all the notecards into the proper sequence for your paper.  What makes sense.  What’s logical.  Is the paper going to flow?  And that’s what your outline does.  Helps you organize all your information.  So, it makes sense to use the outline to create your clusters. 

Go forth.  Cluster and sort.

New Notecard

Alrighty.  Open your list.  Your sources should be listed.  Click “Notecards” on the menu bar at the top (where you have My Lists, Bibliography, Notecards, Help.) 

 Click “new notecard” on the top right. Then, a few reminders  …

Title - You must name your notecard.  Give it a title that tells what’s on the notecard.

Source - If you’ve entered your sources, use the drop-down menu to indicate which source you’re using.  You MUST include the source so you can cite the source within the body of your paper!

Cluster - This is the category.  Remember we talked about family, education, and accomplishments as clusters/categories if you were writing a biography research report.  You’ll need to create clusters and rearrange your cards into the proper clusters.  Organization, people.  Organization.

URL - If you are taking notes from a source on the Web, copy and paste the address line into this space (like a Web page or online journal/magazine article.)

Pages - For books you must include the page number(s) you’re taking notes from.  You will need this when you cite your sources within the body of your paper.   For magazines and journals, if you have the actual page numbers of the article, list the page number. 

Tags - Don’t worry about tags.

Direct Quotes & Paraphrases

For this research paper, do not use the direct quotation and the paraphrase notecard on the same screen.  If you are going to have both for the same source, then you need to create separate notecards.  You should have more than one notecard per source anyway.  Placing your direct quote and your paraphrase on separate notecards will allow you more flexibility in arranging your notes in order.  Take my word for it.

When you log into Noodle, you’ll be on the “List” page.  Click one of your lists and it opens you to the “Bibliography” page.  This is where you’ll enter the information about each of the sources you are using for the research project. 

From the drop-down list, choose the type of source you’re using and click CREATE CITATION.  Remember to read all the green questions AND the answer choices and select the best answer.  I think this is the most difficult part for students: taking the time to READ these questions AND the answers !!!

However (I wanted to start with “But,” but I figured English teachers would have a stroke!), if you really understand what makes a magazine a magazine and not a journal …. if you understand that a Web site has many Web “pages” … if you really understand that a book that has no author will most always have an editor … if you understand that when you use bits and pieces throughout a book you need to cite the whole book and not just one chapter … if you understand that the more you understand the smarter you are and the EASIER this whole process will be !!!  Now, read this really long post and all the others on Noodle and go forth and be smart.

Web Sites vs. Magazine & Journal Articles

Web sites are most always FREE unlike the journal articles you find in Academic Search Premier.  Our state legislature pays for your subscription to EBSCOhost through the MAGNOLIA site, so the journal and magazine articles you locate through these sites are considered subscriptions.  Web sites are FREE.  Journal and magazine articles are not Web sites !!!

Web Sites

If you’re using a particular page on the Internet, you need to cite that page giving the title of that Web page and the name of the Web site.  Look around the page and see if there’s a link to “home” … you need to cite the main Web SITE if your page is part of a bigger site.  So, let’s say you have a Web page and it’s part of a bigger Web site.  You’ll list the author and title of your Web ‘page” and you’ll also list the name of the Web “site” and list the author or organization responsible for the entire Web “site” … clear as mud?  Thought so.  If you are using multiple parts of a Web site, then cite the Web “site.”  When in college, check your MLA manual! 

Unique URLs

A Web site that you find through Google, Yahoo, Ask or other search engine is going to have it’s own Web site address.  That’s a unique URL, so check that box for Web sites. 

Magazine or Journal?  Which is it?

You have to choose between journal and magazine before you click CREATE CITATION.  A simple way of deciding is to ask yourself if you can buy it at Wal-Mart.  More than likely if you can buy it at Wal-Mart then it’s a magazine.  Journals are more professional.  They’re usually geared toward one subject area.   They’re more “scholarly” and educational-type.  Magazines are geared more toward pop culture, sorta. 

For Magazine and Journal Articles

Make sure you do read the questions folks, especially the one that asks if publication info (like page numbers & date of publication) is provided.  Look at your article and see.  More than likely that info IS available.  For the question or print or online … if you are using the magazine or journal itself, if you have a copy of the whole magazine/journal in your hands, then you’re answer is PRINT !!!  If you’re using EBSCOhost (going through MAGNOLIA) to get your article, then your answer is ONLINE.  Your magazine/journal is online which covers one this is only available online but also one that is in PRINT but also available online.

Books

Part or Whole:  Before you can cite the book you need to know if you’ll be using bits and pieces throughout the book or if you’re only going to be using one chapter. 

Whole book: You need to cite the author and if there’s no author you’ll need to cite the book editor.  If you have an author, don’t worry about the editor (for high school purposes-for college purposes consult your MLA manual.)

Part of a book: Ok.  If you’re using just a chapter or part of a chapter and there’s no book author but there is a chapter author, cite the editor of the book and the author of the chapter.  Include the title of the chapter in your citation.  When in Noodle or other citation maker, MAKE SURE you choose to create a citation for using “part of a book” and not an “entire book.”  Otherwise, Noodle (or other citation maker) won’t ask you for the chapter/article title and there’ll be nowhere for you to enter the author of that chapter. 

Multiple chapters: For high school purposes, when you’re using several chapters from a book, cite the book as the “entire book.”  For college, consult your MLA manual! 

Publication city: When multiple cities are listed, use the first city for high school purposes.

Publication date:  Use the most recent date when multiple dates are listed.

Encyclopedias: Juniors and Seniors are not allowed to use encyclopedias as a source on their research paper.  However, if you use a specialized encyclopedia from the reference section, that is an allowed source.  For example, several medical reference books are part of an “encyclopedia” set of four or more volumes.  When you cite those special encyclopedias, make sure you choose encyclopedia from the drop down list to create your citation.  Also, pay attention to the page where you enter information.  You most likely WILL have a volume number and sometimes you will have an “edition” listed.  Read the title page of your book carefully so that you include all relevant information for that source.

Remember, as a QHS student you have a Noodle account paid for for you by the library!  You’re welcome.  If you have not received a username and password through your English class, come see me in the library.  Or email me @ mkemp@qsd.k12.ms.us

To use Noodle for a research assignment you need to create a separate “list” for each assignment. 

You can use Noodle for your research assignments even if your teacher doesn’t know what Noodle is.  You can use Noodle even if your teacher does not REQUIRE you to use Noodle.  If the site helps you create your Works Cited page, use it.  If it helps you organize your notes, use it.  If you hit a snag, email me or come see me. 

Oh, and name your list something that tells you what the assignment is!  I would recommend including the teacher’s name and class period just as we did for your English class and then I’d include the name of the assignment.  A short name for the assignment. 

A really good article by Sue Waters gives great tips for bloggers:

Use Short Paragraphs

People are not going to read really long paragraphs.  So, when I blog I am going to use really short paragraphs, even if I have to include a whole bunch of paragraphs.

Use Headings

If my post is going to be long I can make it easier for someone to read if I use headings.  Headings will make the title larger and will bold it.  If there’s alot of points to whatever I’m writing, then I could use the “bullet” feature to put the little dots in front of each point … that would make it easier to read.

Hyperlinking

If you are writing a blog and referring to someone else’s blog, you should give them credit by hyperlinking to their blog — specifically to the post you mentioned in YOUR blog. 

Always Comment Back to Readers on Your Own Posts

When someone makes a comment on a post on on my blog site, then courtesy demands that I respond to the person who took time to make that comment. 

Start with a good biographical source like Wilson Biographies.

Go to the high school library Web site and click MAGNOLIA in the top right.  If you’re not at school remember you’ll have to click “access resources from home” at the top right of the MAGNOLIA home page and enter a password.  Email me or your English teacher for this.

Once you’re on the MAGNOLIA page, scroll to the bottom and click Wilson.

Click Biographies Plus.

Enter your person’s name and click start.

You’ll get a list of people, so just click the right one and you’ll get your biographical information.  Notice there are additional links on the left (at least for most entries there are links to additional information.)

Be sure to cite your source!