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How to Teach Students the Importance of Using Credible Sources for Research

In college, students learn to hone their critical writing skills by writing academic and research papers. Part of writing these papers is learning to cite sources properly to avoid plagiarism. Teachers, for their part, must stress the importance of citing credible, reliable sources. These sources should be from academic or research journals and publications. If your students do not understand the importance of citing credible sources, they are more likely to misinterpret facts and present false information in their papers.

Instructions

- 1
  Show your students anonymous samples of poorly researched academic papers. Explain that the students received much lower marks than their peers who cited credible, scholarly sources.
- 2
  Explain the difference between a scholarly and a non-scholarly source. Introduce them to online research databases such as LexisNexis and MLA Bibliography so they can search for keywords relating to their academic topics.
- 3
  Show your students how erroneous non-scholarly sources can be; for example, a Wikipedia or blog page that presents incorrect or blatantly false information. Tell them that citing these kinds of sources destroys their own credibility in their academic and research papers.

Metacognitive Techniques

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