Reference Works for Teens
Add materials here that you feel would be of use to other members of the class. Quality is more important than quantity. Feel free to edit problem citations or URLs as you encounter them.
Go Ask Alice! http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/
Go Ask Alice! is a health Q&A Internet resource. It works to provide readers with reliable, accurate, accessible, culturally competent information and a range of thoughtful perspectives so that they can make responsible decisions concerning their health and well-being. Starting in 1993 at Columbia University's Health Promotion program (likely making it the first major health Q&A Internet site), this site answers questions about relationships; sexuality; sexual health; emotional health; fitness; nutrition; alcohol, nicotine, and other drugs; and, general health.
Will Wagler, Fall 2008
Manguel, A. (2007). The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: The Newly Updated and Expanded Classic. New York: Harcourt, Inc.
This is a reference book to all imaginary places and all their inhabitants. Its author, Alberto Manguel organizes all the details from fictional places like the land of OZ or Hogwarts. Besides covering fictional literature, this source also includes fictional places in film and music. I recently discovered this source during a visit to a local public library. A reference library recommended it to a patron for assistances on information about the land of Narnia. It's really becoming a favorite since I've been rereading several classic fictional tales from my younger years. This would make an excellent companion to any fantasy, fairy-tale, or science fiction novel.
Desiree Lazo, December 11, 2008
____________________________________________________
The Library of Congress, American Memory at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
High school history students are often encouraged to locate original documents and artifacts to support their research. This site has over five million items available online - in various formats: written forms, audio forms, maps, sheet music, and so forth.
Kathy Parisen, Spring 2008
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thinkquest Library at http://www.thinkquest.org/library/index.html
Over 6,000 websites created by students for students that cover a range of topics from Art and Entertainment, to History and Government, to Sports and Recreation. The winners of the annual competition become part of this library. The competition started in 1996.
Kathy Parisen, Spring 2008
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue (owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/)
The Purdue OWL is a free resource for all your academic writing needs. Need examples of APA and MLA formats and citations? Question on grammar and mechanics? What about literary analysis, creative writing, and tutoring writing? Or maybe you simply need advice on beginning the writing process. Answers to all those questions, and more, await you at the OWL. It's completely FREE. A wonderful resource that even allows the user to submit brief writing related questions to the OWL tutors.
Posted by: Courtney Diputado. 08/10/2007
Quoteland.com (http://www.quoteland.com/)
This site offers some fun and easy to navigate resources for finding quotes. You can find quotes by topic or author and you can even join various forums to discuss writing, poetry, etc. The best feature is searching for quotes by author, because clicking on that link leads to a huge menu of authors and languages from which you can choose. Click on the name Anne Frank and you get several quotes plus a link to books by and about Anne Frank. You can find quotes from the Bible, African proverbs ... you name it. A person could potentially spend a good couple of hours reading various quotes and browsing books by the authors of those quotes.
Sally Gomez, 8/10/07
Occupational Outlook Handbook online (http://www.bls.gov/oco/)
I like this Web site to help teens explore potential careers. The site offers lots of information about salary range, education requirements and future employment projections. A teen wondering about a specific career can find information here. But also, once a teen is in the site, he/she might browse around looking up all kinds of different careers. It's a good thing for teens to do to get some exposure to possible careers. The site also includes information on what the actual job is like. It seems that teens don't get enough opportunities to explore careers and this is any easy way for them to find information every time they think of something new.
Sally Gomez, 8/10/07
International Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com)
This is a great Web site that a librarian can use to help young adults search for particular movies, actors, etc. The site contains various information including year of release, featured actors, synopsis of movies and ratings and reviews. A user can search for any movie and get loads of information. The site also includes the current top box office movies, movies that are opening this week and future releases. For a movie buff, this is a great site and a great way for librarians to connect with young adults as well as offer a great service in searching for information. Searches can be done by movie title, actors' names, characters, quotes, etc. When a patron is looking for a certain movie, all the librarian needs is a name of an actor or character and there it is.
Sally Gomez, 8/10/07
This website is a great source for reviews, information, and news on movies.
Submitted by Travis Whitt on November 5, 2008
Snopes.com (www.snopes.com)
A great website to not only investigate whether to buy into the latest information that just landed in your inbox, but also to see popular myths, hoaxes, computer viruses, and urban legends. Fact-based information that leads teens to look beyond accepting something just because “I heard it from a friend of a friend..” A fascinating look into what rumors are currently making their way around the web, and one that is an excellent reference to check out before you hit that forward button on an email.
Margie Llinas, 8/9/2007
All Music Guide (http://www.allmusic.com/)
All Music Guide is a great website for researching all forms of music. It has information on thousands of recordings. The database is searchable by performer, album title, and song title. It also includes biographies of musicians and singers and recording reviews. Some information, such as brief essays on music genres and musical instruments, is available with free registration to the site. It is a place for music fans to indulge their passion. The content is created by professional music critics, editors, and writers.
Posted by 
Lori Chan. 08/01/07
www.radicalreference.info
This is the home site of Radical Reference, a politically progressive volunteer-run collective that provides both real-time reference support and email reference services to its users. Users who create profiles may utilize the extremely user-friendly reference question forms available on the site to submit reference questions to the collective; any collective member who is able picks up and responds to the questions as they are asked, whether it’s three o’clock in the afternoon or three o’clock in the morning.
While this service could certainly be useful to teenagers, I think it's more likely that they would use Radical Reference’s Digital Reference Shelf, which must seem, to green-haired angry kids in suburbs and small towns, like the Library of Alexandria did to ancient scholars. You don’t have to be a registered user of the site to access this part of it; all users are welcome to utilize the Digital Reference Shelf. There are a ton of links in this section of the site; there are listings of alternative and independent libraries and bookstores, as well as links to resources related to everything from bicycling to Hurricane Katrina to the history of radical activism in the United States. Best of all, there’s a link to an extensive bibliography created especially for young adults, focused particularly on globalization but including books and websites generally dedicated to transforming yourself into a well-informed, butt-kicking lefty avenger. The suggested age range is roughly age 9 to age 19, but some of the books included were written for adults and take extremely controversial stances on touchy issues, so it might be wise to run a little bit of interference with younger users.
Also, this bibliography has not been updated since 2004, and there are certainly more recent books that would merit inclusion. Fortunately, the Radical Reference site is a limited-access wiki, meaning that registered users can alter or update any of the postings on the Digital Reference Shelf as they see fit. Check it out at http://www.radicalreference.info/node/410.
Submitted by Sierra Logan on May 17, 2007
www.factmonster.com
I found this web site of the Mill Valley Middle School’s web site. It is a fact-filled site with a reference section with links to a dictionary, encyclopedia, almanac, atlas and timelines. Topics such as World, Science, Math and Money, Word Wise, and Games and Quizzes are the first thing you see when you come to the site. There are two blogs: one geared to ages 6-10 and the other for 11-14 year olds. It’s also divided between girls and boys. Factmonster.com submits announcements to the blog such as “Henry Winkler may be visiting a town near you”. I thought to myself, do they know this is “The Fonz?” This is a free web site that runs ads across the top and along the left column on the screen. Once you get past the ads, it’s a great site for youth.
Jessica Ryan, May 15, 2007
Sullivan, Michael. (2003). Connecting boys with books: what libraries can do. Chicago: American Library Association
Michael Sullivan is a guy who used to be one of few male children librarians. The author starts with the premise that boys by the fourth grade fall sharply behind girls in reading and never really catch up. He gives several reasons for this including their interests in sports and activities that don’t allow sufficient time to develop good reading habits. When boys read, they are more inclined to read non-fiction works, which are not necessarily in book format, such as baseball cards. The lack of male librarians in itself doesn’t promote reading among boys in that there is an absence of male role models to encourage reading, and female librarians are not always aware of the difference in reading style and interests for boys. The author suggests allowing boys to choose their own reading and giving them all types of reading materials and genres to promote readings, such as, sports themes, to bring boys into the libraries. According to the author, libraries need to promote reading especially for boys by providing numerous activities. Not all of the activities need to be reading based provided that there is a connection to reading.
Jiaolan Bu, May 13, 2007.
Book Adventure. http://www.bookadventure.com/. Sylvan Learning Center, Inc. (Accessed April 11, 2007)
Grade K-8-This free web site aims to encourage young readers to read more, especially students reading below their grade-levels. While children can take quizzes and earn rewards on the website through reading, this website aids librarians to search appropriate books for reading advisory based on grade levels K-8, genres (37), non-fiction or fiction. Most of search results have short annotations by clicking a blue icon besides titles. For slow or reluctant readers, there is a choice to choose levels below their grades. After reading books, children can check out the Quiz-O-Matic to get quizzed and earn some points!
Jiaolan Bu, May 9, 2007
Learning words by reading them context is the most effective way to expand students’ vocabulary. This edition includes 297 SAT vocabulary words highlighted throughout the text with definitions for on the facing page. These bolded words are frequently found on the SAT. A word-pronunciation guide, synonyms and the part of speech are also included. There are also other titles in this SAT Kaplan series: The Tales of Edgar Allen Poe, Frankenstein and The Scarlet letter. This is a painless way for students to improve vocabulary in preparation for the SAT.
Jill Russell, November 25, 2006
A comprehensive resource for evaluating sources and examples of MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE styles of documentation.
Paula Miller, August 9, 2006
This is a great site for MLA and APA citation formation. It encourages students to be ethical users of information.
Paula Miller, August 9, 2006
-
Academic web links. Dunn School Collins Library. Retrieved July 26, 2006, from http://www.dunnschool.org/teaching/lib_weblinks.htm
When I looked at my list of favorite reference sources I had a hard time choosing the best one, so I decided to cite my page of favorites. What makes a reference source excellent is not only the quality of the information and how it is presented, but the ability of students to access it when they need to. While many of the subscription databases are truly excellent (Gale Biography, InfoTrac, and the ABC Clio History databases being the most popular at my library), I think free sites are also important. I have a constantly evolving list of those by subject at the bottom of the page. I require my students to have a local public library card so they have access to the school’s subscription databases, as well as those offered by the public library. The academic web links page is part of a larger library website that I built for Dr. Loertscher in 233. I hate to toot my own horn, but I love this page because it was made to serve the exact needs of me and my students. So I guess my favorite reference source is the tailored information portal I use every day.
Noodle Tools. Retrieved July 26, 2006, from http://www.noodletools.com
Noodle is an online bibliography machine. Although it does have a free version, I highly recommend the subscription; it is VERY affordable to buy as a school-wide resource. I use Noodle to teach kids proper citation. Because Noodle is a template, it asks kids many questions about their sources that help them evaluate the material and include all the pertinent information for various types of media. Once a student has created a personal folder, Noodle saves the bibliographies they have been working on. This allows kids to work on multiple projects over time from different locations because they always have access to their work. Noodle also gives help on creating parenthetical citations, so information in a paper is connected to the bibliography. Noodle can do APA and MLA styles, and it also has a simpler MLA version for younger students. Finally, the website itself has freebies with pages that talk about teaching, research, and good online reference sites. Did I mention that their technical support is fabulous? I love this tool. It is an essential at my school library.
Turn It In. Retrieved July 26, 2006, from http://www.turnitin.com
Turn It In (TII) is another favorite reference resource. It is also affordable for school purchase, has excellent technical support, and is an essential school-wide tool. TII was originally known for its ability to scan student papers for matching text and plagiarism, including direct links to copied text from web sources, information databases, and a huge pool of other student papers. I use this feature with students to help them understand proper paraphrasing and citation. It is sometimes used to “bust” kids who are plagiarizing, but it is most often used to help kids improve their research and writing. Once students make a personal folder, they can submit their work online to their teacher. TII is really the poor school’s BlackBoard. It includes features like discussion boards, peer review of papers, online grading, and more. I encourage teachers to use these distance learning tools to allow them to save class time for hands-on work. For example, many class discussions can be done online to improve the quality of “conversation” and to allow quieter voices to be heard. This can create class time for writing workshops, library research, group projects, etc.
Michelle Bone 7/26/2006
Older materials: Pull out of this section any materials still of use.
Encyclopedias
• Del Vecchio, Stephen. "Out for a Spin: A School Librarian Test Drives 14 CD-ROM Encyclopedias." School Library Journal, Sept. 1, 1997. (http://www.bookwire.com/SLJ/articles.article$3108)
• See also an article reviewing both print and CDROM atlases (www.bookwire.com/SLJ/articles.article$9250)
Citation Machine (http://www.citationmachine.net)
This handy tool is great for a quick reference on how to cite a work. Anyone writing a paper should give credit to ideas they did not create themselves. This tool lets writers of papers quickly enter data and make an appropriate citation so they can give proper credit to other writers, comply with copyright rules, and properly perform the work required in class assignments. Writers can choose from ALA, MLA, Chicago, and Turabian formats so complying with class standards is no problem with Citation Machine. I recommend this reference tool for anyone writing a paper, essay, book, or anything else that requires citation of materials.
Josh Murray Sp08
safe mode
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.