Print header and logo

Durant Independent School District

Durant High School

Library Resource Tools

Resources and media for learning

Related Information

Directories, search engines, and meta-indexes

Directories
If your topic is broad (school, etc.) start with a directory.
Select the most likely general subject heading and move down through the levels of subcategories.
Common directories: Yahoo!, Looksmart
Search engines
If your topic is specific or narrow use a search engine.
Try using phrases instead of single words. Put quotation marks around the phrases.
Use nouns whenever possible, placing the most important terms first. Put a "+" before any word you want to include and a "-" before any word you want to exclude.
Use a wild card (*) or Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to find different forms of a search term.
Common search engines: Google, Altavista, Northern Light, Lycos, Go
Directories
Meta-Indexes search the databases of other search engines and directories simultaneously.
The results are more comprehensive but returned more slowly.
Common meta-indexes: Dogpile, Metacrawler, Search, AskJeeves, About, EduHound

Copyrights and plagiarism

"Plagiarize—To steal and pass off as one's own (the ideas or words of another); to use without crediting the source."—Webster's Third New International Dictionary

School and library guidelines
Students must use intellectual honesty and give credit to the creator of the information used for research projects or other works.
Students must cite sources for all research projects according to styles and guidelines provided by the faculty.
Information that should be collected as you research, and which will be used in your "Works Cited" page: Author's name; article title; book or magazine title; place of publication; publisher; date of publication, or copyright date; Internet URL; and date taken from the Internet.
Copyrights and plagiarism websites
Avoiding plagiarism
Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It
Plagiarism Question and Answer
Copyright and Intellectual Property-American Library Association
ALA Booklist-annotated bibliography of copyright websites

*Note: Sites listed are not maintained by Durant Independent School District. We do not control content or availability.

Citing sources

The author of each piece of information must be given credit for his/her work. To use another's thoughts and ideas as your own is plagiarism. After you have found the sources you intend to use, you will need to identify them with a "Works Cited" section. For each item you use, write a separate listing, e.g., on an index card giving: the name of the author or authors; title; editor, translator, compiler, if any; edition, if it is not the first edition; place and date of the book's publication; and the name of the book's publisher.

Write a separate listing for each article from a magazine or journal. Include: the name(s) of the author(s); the title of the article; the title of the periodical; the date of the issue in which the article appears; and the pages on which the article you are referring to appears.

MLA style guide

Here are some examples for citing paper sources in MLA style:

General rules
Underline titles of books, magazines, and scholarly journals. Enclose title of articles, essays, poems, and short stories in quotation marks.
Indent five spaces or one-half inch after the first line of each entry and double space within and between all entries.
Be sure to alphabetize your "Works Cited" page by author's last name or the first word of the title, if the author's name is not given.
One author
Kaku, Michio. Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through parallel Universes, TimeWarps, and the Enth Dimension. New York: Oxford UP, 1994.
Two or three authors
Maddock, Richard C., and Richard L. Fulton. Marketing to the Mind: Right Brain Strategies for Advertising and Marketing. Westport, CT: Quorum, 1996.
More than three authors
Gilman, Sandra, et. al. Hysteria Beyond Freud. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.
No author (begin the citation with the title)
"A Painful Tradition." Newsweek 5 Jul, 1999: 32.
Editor
Lopate, Philip, ed. The Art of the Personal essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1994.
Article in a reference book
Coulter, Ellis Merton. "John Adair." Dictionary of American Biography. Ed. Allen Johnson. 11 vols. New York: Scribner's Sons, 1964.
Encyclopedia article
Gates, David M. "Astronomy." Encyclopedia Americana. 1996 ed.
Article from a monthly magazine
Dezell, Maureen. "Genetic Testing: Is It Wise?" American Health. Mar. 1997: 41-44.
One author
Simons, John. "Improbable Dreams". U.S. News and World Report 22 Mar. 1997: 4-7.

For electronic sources when listing an online source originally printed in a book, journal, or other printed format, use the general guidelines you would use to cite the printed form. Then follow it with information that tells where to find the source on the Internet.

Author
Dawe, James. Jane Austen Page. 08 June 2001 <http://www.jamesdawe.com/austen.html>.
No author
Learn to be Assertive in a Positive Way. Counseling and Mental Health Center, U of Texas Austin. 08 June 2001 <http://www.utexas.edu/student/cmhc/assertips.html>.
Magazine or journal within a database
"Diabetes Increases Risk for Cesarean Delivery." Nutrition Research Newsletter. EBSCOhost. Southeastern Oklahoma State University Library, Durant. 08 June 2001.
Online encyclopedia
"The End of the Cold War." Britannica Online. 1994-1999. Encyclopedia Britannica. 08 June 2001 <http://www.eb.com>.
Online periodical
Koehn, Daryl. "The Ethics of Handwriting Analysis in Pre-Employment Screening." The Online Journal of Ethics 1.1 (1995). Retrieved 2 June 2001 <http://condor/depaul.edu/ethics/hand.html>.

Library information

Library home
Library mission staff, and hours
Library rules and guidelines
Guidelines and rules for acceptable use of library media and computer resources
References and resources
Guide to traditional and links to electronic resources
Library College and Career Center
Helpful links and resources for college and career preparation, financial aid, and scholarships