Attribution
The definition for digital citizenship includes the practice of safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology such as respecting and managing creative and intellectual property. Digital citizens are able to find, assess, cite, and use reources to make new learning. By providing attribution or acknowledging their sources, students demonstrate citizenship and show their readers the path taken to reach their conclusions. Citing shows how the students tied others’ research and ideas together and how they came to learn about and develop their own ideas, opinions, and possible solutions.
Why Cite Sources?
The University of Alabama states five convincing reasons for citing sources:
- Citations reflect the careful and thorough work put into locating and exploring sources.
- Citations help readers understand the context of the argument and are a courtesy to the reader, who may share the student`s interest in a particular area of study.
- Citations allow acknowledgement of the authors who contributed to the learning and the work.
- Citations, by illustrating the learning process, also draw attention to the originality and legitimacy of students’ ideas.
- By citing sources, students demonstrate integrity and skill as a responsible citizen in the field of study.
Free Citation Generators
Need help creating citations and bibliographies? Citation generators can help. There are many options to choose from, including Web sites, propetitaty software, and browser extensions.
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BibMe - Produces citations and bibliographies in APA, MLA, Chicago and Turabian styles. It has some features not found in other free citation generators, such as autofill and the ability to switch between citation styles. Watch a video tutorial for using BibMe to cite sources.
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Databases - Many databases offer the ability to format citations, usually as part of the print/save/email function, or in a “cite this article” link
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Microsoft Word - Automatically generate a bibliography based on the source information students provide for the document. The online tutorial may be of assistance.
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Zotero - Free, open source utility that works in the Firefox browser to help users collect, manage and cite sources.
Copyright- Free Search Engines
Visit Techy Teacher`s Image Resources and Audio Resources for a list of copyright-free search engines.
May 20, 2012