jtcarter14 Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Hi, It seems that there's always some research to do, and we often can't make it to the library. When we look things up on the internet, at the very least, the first page is filled with results from wikipedia, yahoo answers and the like. What are some trustworthy resources on the internet that we could use? Do I need to get a subscription to an online encyclopedia, or is there a good free one? Any other ideas, suggestions? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stripe Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Does your library or state library have any online databases that you can access with your card? I'd ask. Mine has a World Book encyclopedia, the World Book Kids (Gr 1-3), and some other resources directly aimed at the under-8th grade age range. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mohop Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I don't have a specific source for you but wanted to share that my DH is a public high school English teacher, and he only accepts internet sources from an .edu or .gov site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Hi, It seems that there's always some research to do, and we often can't make it to the library. When we look things up on the internet, at the very least, the first page is filled with results from wikipedia, yahoo answers and the like. What are some trustworthy resources on the internet that we could use? Do I need to get a subscription to an online encyclopedia, or is there a good free one? Any other ideas, suggestions? Thanks! You might try using Wikipedia as a portal to other sites. Many of the articles have footnotes or links to other sites with more detailed information. I've also found that a glance through a Wiki article will give me the more specific terms that I need to do a more targeted search that gets me to more detailed and reliable sources. I'm fond of sites that give references to statements or that are part of a college or university (ex. I've used an Arizona university often for scorpion research and Cornell for bird info). So I watch for sites that end in .edu or sometimes in .gov . I've also found that official websites for a region can have good info (like the tourism boards for different regions or countries). Museum websites tend to be pretty reliable. We also have a copy of World Book Encyclopedia that we got one year for our Sonlight curriculum. This was a great resource. And it is still conducive to browsing, which was always something I liked about using a hard copy encyclopedia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stripe Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I don't have a specific source for you but wanted to share that my DH is a public high school English teacher, and he only accepts internet sources from an .edu or .gov site. Sorry, but this is rather outdated and unhelpful. Academic journals or the newspaper should be acceptable, and libraries have databases (usually on .com database websites) of published articles that are reliable, and nothing is "internetty" about them content-wise. Many small libraries are not able to keep big stacks of old journals and newspapers, so the database is what they've got, and the content is the exact same stuff as microfiche or old paper. The USPS has a .com website. Anyone can have a .edu website, for that matter, this stuff isn't restricted, and a student/professor/staff member can post their unreliable junk on their personal .edu website. I think that's more a filter to remove stuff, than a way to actually FIND valuable information. I'd see if your library has a website with links to reliable sources for kids also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtcarter14 Posted January 21, 2011 Author Share Posted January 21, 2011 Thanks for the tips! I had forgotten about the online library resources. What about Glossary.com? We ended up there because we could not find "Table of Nations" on the library's encyclopedia or dictionary sites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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