"How to write a Bibliography"
Objectives
1. The students will become familiar with the term “bibliography”.
2. The students will understand why they need to write bibliographies.
3. The students will become aware of the moral reasons for writing
bibliographies.
4. The students will be able to write their own bibliography.
Content
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In this lesson students will learn how to write a
bibliography. The
teacher will show the students this by defining what a bibliography is,
showing the students examples of bibliographies, examining what
information must be included in a bibliography, going through the step by
step process of writing a bibliography and then allowing students to try
to write a
bibliography on their own.
Resources
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Various books and journals students can use to reference. These books
can be on any topic as long as they have information in them that students
can use to write a bibliographical entry for.
Strategies
Activity 1
1. Let the students draw a game card and them have them move their
game piece accordingly. (Race to Nome)
2. Give them time to journal about how they are doing in the game.
Activity 2
1. Ask the students if any of them know what a bibliography is. Have
them share these thoughts with the class. If they do not know what
it is, ask them where they may have heard that word before. If they
still do not know, then explain it to them; it is possible they have never
heard this word before.
2. Explain the word bibliography by telling the students that when we read
things out of books and we want to use the ideas from the books in a
paper or project, then we need to cite our sources. This means when
people read our paper, they should be able to know where we got our
information. A bibliography is a list of all of the sources you use when
you research information. By looking at this bibliography, the readers
will have enough information to look a specific source up on their own.
3. Explain to the students that as Christians, it is especially important
that
we cite our sources so we give credit to the right people. We do not want
to use someone else’s work and say it is our own. This is stealing and in
Exodus 20:15 the Bible tells us this is not right. Tell the students that
stealing someone’s work is called plagiarism and it is illegal. Make sure
they understand how important it is to give credit to the right people by
citing sources.
4. Show the students some examples of bibliographies from
http://www.geocities.com/richmondnsw/RESEARCH/biblio.html.
You could show
them this by projecting these websites on a screen in front of class
or by printing these websites out and putting them on the overhead or
handing them out to students. This is a great website to help you explain
the purpose of bibliographies and it is a good reference point for students.
Here are other websites that are great for teachers and for students:
-http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/edu/student_pages/ISY00550/POBrien/biblios.html.
-http://www.bialik.netaxis.qc.ca/homework/stylesheet2.htm.
-http://www.aresearchguide.com/12biblio.html.
5. Again, talk through what a bibliography is while you are pointing out the
different examples. Next, show the students an example of a bibliography
you have written. (Example Bibliography)
6. Have students look at the examples and make a list on the board of all
the things they think are needed in a bibliography. (Author, page number,
title...etc)
7. Complete the list by adding any additional pieces of information students
might have missed and taking away the things they don’t need.
8. Behind each item in this list, write where in a book or magazine this
information can usually be found. (For example, the copyright date is
usually on the inside cover and the author is on the front cover.)
9. Ask the students if any of them have a book or magazine in their desk.
Ask them if they will let you see if for a minute.
10. Using the book the student has given you, talk through the process of
looking in the book for information, finding some good information, writing
down what information you will need to make a bibliography, and then
citing the source. Write down the necessary information from the book
on the white board, using the list the students already made that says what
information they need for a bibliography. While you are doing that, show
the students where in the book you are finding each piece of information
so they become familiar with this.
11. After you have the list of information that you need, show the students
how to organize it all into a bibliography format by doing each step
slowly on the board. Have the example entry on the board as you do
this so they have something to look at. Ask the class, “Which piece of
information do we need first?” Hopefully they will respond by saying
the author’s name. Remind them that the author’s last name always
goes first. Then ask, “What information do we need next?” Here they
should say the title of the book. Talk through each step like this until
the entry is completed.
12. Remind students to always put the author’s last name first, and indent
the second line five spaces.
13. After you have shown the students a couple of examples on the board,
hand out the sheet that has citation examples for different works cited
entries. This sheet can be found at any of these websites:
-http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/edu/student_pages/ISY00550/POBrien/biblios.html.
-http://www.bialik.netaxis.qc.ca/homework/stylesheet2.htm.
-http://www.aresearchguide.com/12biblio.html.
The students may keep this and use it when they are citing sources.
14. Next, have a pile of various references books, magazines, and articles.
Tell the students they each have to practice making a works cited page
by finding a piece of information that is interesting from at least five of
the books They should write this information down (it should only be a
couple of sentences long) and then write a bibliography entry to go
with it.
Closure
1. Give the students the rest of the time to practice making a works cited
page by citing these sources. Be available for questions because this may
be tricky for them at first.
2. Have the students hand this sheet in to you when they are finished. Correct
the errors they may have made and then hand it back to them so they can
fix the errors they made.
Extension Activities
1. Have students practice citing
different kinds of sources such as sources
with multiple authors, journal articles with no authors and websites.
2. Allow these students to find a website on the computer that gives
examples
of bibliographies for each type of entry. Here are a few websites to start
with, but encourage them to find many more websites that could help the
class out.
-
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/edu/student_pages/ISY00550/POBrien/biblios.html.
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http://www.bialik.netaxis.qc.ca/homework/stylesheet2.htm.
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http://www.aresearchguide.com/12biblio.html.
Evaluation
1. Check the student’s work on their bibliographies. Correct the errors and
allow them to fix them. Have them hand in their final draft and give them
a mark in the grade book if the work is done neatly and correctly. If it is
not, hand it back to them and have them redo it until it is satisfactory.
Lesson Plans Unit Outline Language Arts Lessons