To continue my series about citing sources, I am going to delve into the world of another online cite that assists the writer in the art of citation. (Yes, I call it an art because it takes talent to master the skill. Many of our students are lacking that skill and need to have it drilled and added to their brains more often than once a year. It is a skill that needs to be adapted, utilized and practiced frequently.) My site today is: Easybib.
I learned about Easybib a few years ago when I was teaching a senior project class which involved writing a super intense research paper. I learned about it when I had my iPhone and someone told me to download the app and try it. I did and I loved how it worked. Scan a barcode and get the citation. Easy as that.
I checked the website and found it just as easy to use. It offers the researcher both guides to using a citation as well as offers ways to build the citation page. It is very simple for the researcher.
You merely decide the format *APA, MLA, etc. and plug in the information. It does the work for you. Is it going to teach kids what they need to know? No, but, my thought about this is; who is going to sit down in real life and develop a citation based on the current MLA format? Who is going to read through a guide and go step by step to build it when every database has the entire thing? I wouldn't. If I had some of these wonderful sources to use when I was doing my numerous college papers, I would have absolutely taken advantage of it.
With that being said, Easybib is just that- Easy! It can do a lot to help the research process. I also noticed it adds a special toolbar to Chrome to allow you to tag sites as you access them. Talk about easy!
