AP Capstone Resources

Boolean Operators

Truncation and Wildcards

Truncation is represented by an asterisk (*). To use truncation, enter the root of a search term and replace the ending with an * For example, type comput* to find the words computer or computing. This will increase your search results. The * can also be used as a wildcard in the middle of words for example: a search for hea*one will match words beginning with “hea” and ending with “one.” For example, headphone, headstone, hearthstone. It can be used between words to match any single word. For example, a search for midsummer * dream will match the phrases midsummer night’s dream and midsummer day’s dream. To use the # wildcard, enter your search terms and place # where an alternate spelling might contain an extra character. For example, type colo#r to find all records containing color or colour. Type p#ediatric to find all records with pediatric or paediatric.

---

New York Times Access  You must have a Salt Lake County Library Card to access this database. If you don’t know how to acquire a card please come talk to the librarian Ms. Bates. Go to the Salt Lake County Library—> Click the Learn Tab—> All Resources—-> Scroll to “Proquest Newsstand”—> Type in your library card number—>Click “Publications” located above the search bar-–>Search for New York Times–>click the link that says “New York Times East Coast Edition ” or scroll down to access the international issue—> Scroll to the bottom of the page to search within the publication or select an issue by year and month. 

---

Google Tips

• If you aren’t getting the search results you want change your keywords. Make them more specific or less specific, use synonyms, or rephrase.

• Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase.

e.g. “Wolves of Yellowstone” will only return search results with that exact phrase

• use search term  site:domain to pull up websites with only a specific domain

e.g. wolf site:edu will only pull up .edu sites with “wolf” in them. You can do this for all domains, .edu .org, .gov.

• Add a dash (–) before a word or site to exclude all results that include that word. This is especially useful for words with multiple meanings, like Jaguar the car brand and jaguar the animal.  e.g. jaguar speed -car

---

Plagiarism The following MUST be cited:

• Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, website, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium
• Information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing
• When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase
• When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials
• When you reuse or repost any digital media, including images, audio, video, or other media
• When you PARAPHRASE or SUMMARIZE ideas, facts, or connections that your source has stated.

The following does NOT need a citation:

• Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject
• When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments
• When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc.
• When you are using “common knowledge,” things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents)
• When you are using generally-accepted facts (e.g., pollution is bad for the environment) including facts that are accepted within particular discourse communities (e.g., in the field of composition studies, “writing is a process” is a generally-accepted fact).

Deciding if something is “common knowledge”Generally speaking, you can regard something as common knowledge if you find the same information undocumented in at least five credible sources. Additionally, it might be common knowledge if you think the information you’re presenting is something your readers will already know, or something that a person could easily find in general reference sources. But when in doubt, cite; if the citation turns out to be unnecessary, your teacher or editor will tell you.

Purdue Writing Lab. “Is It Plagiarism? // Purdue Writing Lab.” Purdue Writing Lab, owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/using_research/avoiding_plagiarism/is_it_plagiarism.html.