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Do you dread online research because of the piles of printed Web pages that end up on the classroom floor? Do you worry that students will quote -- or worse, plagiarize -- from the Internet without thinking about they've read? Don't despair. Quality Web research for grades 4-12 can be as easy 1-2-3.

One!
Narrow the topic.

To help students narrow a broad research topic to a more focused topic with subtopics, invite them to answer the questions at ALTEC's Think Tank.

Two!
Copy and paste text into Word.

Teach students to select only the pertinent areas of a Web site. Have them highlight the text they want to save, select Edit>Copy, open Word and then select Edit>Paste. Be sure to have students follow the same steps to accurately copy Web site addresses (URLs) for citation purposes!

Three!
Use font color and Word's highlighter to emphasize important points.

Encourage students to critically evaluate what they read on the Web. Have them copy and paste text from a Web page to Microsoft Word, and then use a different font color and/or highlighting to add comments or to emphasize important points in the text.

Article by Lorrie Jackson
Education World®
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