Canadian Teacher & Teacher-Librarian        

Starter page for students, teachers and parents - especially those          who are searching for Canadian information.

Some Free Advice!

After several years as a teacher and teacher-librarian, I have encountered some frustration by my students, colleagues and myself when searching for Canadian sources of information. As a result, I have prepared this page in order to assist people in finding information they need.

I still believe that in many cases, encyclopaedias and reference books are an excellent starting point. Let's remember that encyclopaedias are written by experts on specific topics, contain bibliographies and are vetted for correctness. The same is usually true of books which are found in public and school libraries. They have been selected by people who are experts in doing just that for you. Thus, I encourage you to use your libraries and books as starting points rather than jumping on the Internet immediately. Your librarian or teacher-librarian is your friend. She will not do the work for you, but she can sure be your guide in a maize of information.

Finally, remember to cite, cite, cite! It's fine to use other people's work, in most case, as long as you acknowledge it. To assist you with this, see the links to bibliography help. Again, your teacher-librarian is a wonderful source of information in this area too.

HOW TO SEARCH FOR INFORMATION EFFICIENTLY

Make sure you know what you are looking for. This may sound obvious, but have you formulated your research questions? In order to do research efficiently, you have to know what you need. While that may sound silly, so many people don't really know. You must first sit down and write out the questions you need answered for the project, homework, essay or other work you are preparing. If you do so, you will save yourself an enormous amount of time in the long run. Going up the wrong road is less likely if you prepare your research questions in advance.

A good way to start is with a KWL chart.

K - What do you already know? You'd be surprised - you know something about this subject.

W - What you WANT to know. This is really the area to put down your research questions.

L - well this is where you keep records of what you found and where you found them.

Important note

The links from this page have been checked either by myself of someone I trust for suitability to high school aged students. Our best endeavours have been made to ensure suitability, however we can take no responsibility for changes that may take place, or disagreement about suitablity.

If you agree with these conditions, for selected links,

please click         http://www.oocities.org/canadian_teacher/Canadian_Teacher.html  

Last update: 24 November 2003