It’s Fun to Find Out!

by Meredith Motley

Has your child ever asked you a question and you didn’t know the answer? Where do you look, what do you tell them? I know one of the more common answers for older kids is “go look it up”. Well, that’s a good thing to do as it teaches them research skills, but even then, children either don’t find what their looking for or find misinformation. My goal is to teach you how to help your kids be investigative learners and find out really cool things together.

1. Look it up
There is a plethora of information out there, waiting to be discovered. One invaluable resource we have had in our house since I was age seven has been a set of encyclopedias. At the time, this was a major investment, but, my brother and I used them for most all of our research papers, projects and even in writing our unit studies. The only problem with encyclopedias is that they are dated, and can’t keep the current information, so we recommend that you buy used volumes and current CD-ROM Encyclopedias.

2. Ask Jeeves
The internet is an awesome tool, there for the taking. However, there are horrible things out there on it as well, and we recommend that parents be present the entire time your children are online. You never know what evil doers will try to stick infront of your children. I use the internet for research every day. I am constantly online. There is so much great stuff out there, for instance, I got all of the current demographic information for our entire Volume 2: For God So Loved the World online. I have found photos of our constitution, workers across the globe and other pictures that are perfect and I wouldn’t have them otherwise. I recommend that you use search engines to help you find exactly what you are looking for. My personal favorite is Ask Jeeves. All you do is type in a question and it brings up new searches and web sites for you. I have yet to come across an inapropriate site (remember, I am constantly looking for photographs!). They guard it very well, and there is also an Ask Jeeves for kids. I have found everything I need off of this engine, or the links inside some of the sites. Check it out.

3. Now that I have the information, what do I do?
The answer to this question depends on why you looked it up in the first place. If you were doing “gee whiz” research, read, ingest, use when needed. If you were researching for a paper or other reason, then you need to do some other things with your information. If you are at a library, take a notebook. In your notebook you will need to write down your bibliographic information (a long word for info on the book). Secondly, you will need to take notes, make copies (for long quotes), and jot ideas. This is what your notebook page should look like:

Title: Where to Find it in the Bible, the ultimate A to Z resource, by Ken Anderson, Nashville, Atlanta, London, Vancouver (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1996)

pg. 342 Mountain Top: citations of where to find them in the Bible, funny cartoon (trace it?)
pg 241 Hills: citations on where to find them in the Bible

Break it Down: We write down the full title of the book, then the author(s). Then, look on the title page of the book (usually the first one or two) and find the cities where it is published. Then, in parentheses, put in the publisher and then the copyright date(s)-found on the next one or two pages.

Internet sources:
When you use the internet for your research, you need to cite those sources too. Here’s what it should look like:
www.christiancottage.com/prod01.htm

You need to put the entire URL or address so that someone can copy exactly what you put and see the same things you did.

4. Write it Out!
Once you have your information, you can take your outline and notes and form your rough draft. Make sure that you add in your footnotes to cite your sources. Rule of thumb for footnotes: if a reader will ask, “How do you know that?” or if it doesn’t sound like your writing, you need a footnote.