The document provides guidance on conducting research for a school project on World War II and D-Day. It instructs to narrow the topic, identify related search terms, evaluate website reliability based on domain name, and distinguish between primary and secondary sources. The document also suggests choosing an organizational structure like chronological order and reminds to properly cite sources in the paper and bibliography.

1. OK. So you have to do research.
NOW WHAT?

2. Got your topic? Narrow it down.
Identify related ideas
Identify specific people, events, places
 For example. Your teacher wants you to research World War
II.
 Google World War II.
 How many results did you get?
 There’s no way to do research on the whole entire war. Narrow
it down to World War II…Europe…D-Day.
 Now Google D-Day
 How many results did you get?
 Fewer or more than World War II?
 Could you narrow D-Day down even further? How?

3. Now figure out some search terms.
What other terms are related to D-Day?
 People
 Places
 Dates
 Events
 Battles
Now go to Google and search for “Normandy + D-
Day”
 How many search results were returned?
 Can you tell which are reliable?

4. It’s on the web so it’s reliable. Right??
There are lots of different types of websites and with
technology today, ANYONE can make a website. Learn to
distinguish reliable from unreliable and ONLY use reliable
sites.
 .com – a commercial site typically sponsored by a company or for the
purpose of making money
 .gov – a government site typically provided for informational purposes
 .edu – an educational site typically provided for educational purposes
 .org – an organization’s site typically provided for informational
purposes of that particular organization
There are others (.net, .mil) but these are most common.
Look over the website to determine if the site looks
professionally made and who sponsors the page. Be
cautious of Wikipedia.

5. Try this out.
You’re researching Normandy and D-Day but want a
website that is from an organization.
 Go to Google and type:
 Normandy + D-Day .org
 The only results you receive are web pages provided by
organizations whose web pages end in .org
You’re researching General Eisenhower and D-Day
but only want government web pages.
 Go to Google and type:
 Eisenhower + D-Day .gov
 The only results you receive are web pages provided by the
government whose web pages end in .gov

6. But what about primary and secondary sources?
Confusing, I know. Let’s see if we can figure them out…
 From: http://www.library.unr.edu/instruction/help/primary.html

7. Now decide on an angle for your paper.
Chronological order…
 Talk about what happened first, then what happened, and so on and
so on until you’ve covered the main points
Spatial order…
 Describe the battlefield from the layout point of view. Where were
the trenches and cannons and tanks?
Cause and effect…
 What caused D-Day and what were the effects of it on WWII?
Question and answer…
 Pose a question related to D-Day and then answer it based on
findings from your research.
Compare and contrast…
 Compare D-Day from the Allied perspective vs. Nazi perspective

8. Be sure to give credit where credit is due.
Always give a parenthetical citation in your paper where
you borrow information. For example, I borrowed a
sentence from the National D-Day Organization website
and copied it word-for-word into my paper. It now looks
like this:
“The terms D-Day and H-Hour are used for the day and hour on which a combat
attack or operation is to be initiated” (The National D-Day Memorial Foundation).
I put the source for
the sentence I just
borrowed in
parentheses
immediately after
the direct quotation.

9. Still giving credit.
Once you’ve given credit in your paper for the actual text
you cited directly (copied word-for-word) or paraphrased
(put someone else’s ideas into your own words), you need
to give a works cited sheet or bibliography. Here’s the
citation for the source we just copied word-for-word:
The National D-Day Memorial Foundation. 3 April 2008
<http://www.dday.org/index.php?page=whatitmeans>.
Always include as much pertinent information as you can
find: author, title, publication date, access date (if the
source is online), journal, book, pages, volume, issue.
Not all information sources will have this information
available.

10. Still giving credit.
Once you’ve given credit in your paper for the actual text
you cited directly (copied word-for-word) or paraphrased
(put someone else’s ideas into your own words), you need
to give a works cited sheet or bibliography. Here’s the
citation for the source we just copied word-for-word:
The National D-Day Memorial Foundation. 3 April 2008
<http://www.dday.org/index.php?page=whatitmeans>.
Always include as much pertinent information as you can
find: author, title, publication date, access date (if the
source is online), journal, book, pages, volume, issue.
Not all information sources will have this information
available.