World Civ Assignment - Soldiers who fought in Iraq/Afghanistan

Last semester there was a World Civ Assignment that required students to find memoirs written by soldiers who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan. Thanks to Alyssa for providing the information that there is a subject heading for "Personal Narratives American Iraq War 2003" 

http://catalog.somerset.lib.nj.us/search~S9?/dpersonal+narratives/dpersonal+narratives/1%2C80%2C237%2CB/exact&FF=dpersonal+narratives+american+iraq+war+2003&1%2C14%2C

Word order in Google searches

There is a great SHORT video on the importance of word order in Google searches. The demo searches and explanations are pretty fast, so students might have a hard time grasping it in the classroom, but it could be used for a quick Google lesson. He points out that Google looks for "bigrams," pairs of words in a particular order, and if there are multiple words in a search, results will emphasize the most common bigram. Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcUuNORncN0. 

Public copiers scan in color

Both the library office copier AND the public copiers can scan in color. 

For the public copiers, the user will need to insert a copy card (available at Check Out if they don't already have one) and a USB drive (also available at Check Out).

Select Scan and Store
Select the memory device (USB) from the list
Select the Edit File option
Select to Add Files (Scan and Store)
Then use the Select Color option to select Full Color

APA Style for Legal Citations

I just came across a post on the APA Style Blog about citing legal sources in APA style. In the past we've had students who were asked to do this, so I wanted to provide you with the link to that post, which basically tells you where to refer to in the Style Manual and links to other blog posts on citing specific types of legal sources:

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/02/introduction-to-apa-style-legal-references.html

If you're not familiar with it, the APA Style Blog is a pretty useful place to look for information on how to cite odd sources in APA Style. I just used it for a question about citing photographs. I found this other post about "Frankenreferences" pretty helpful as well; it describes how to craft a reference from scratch if what you are citing is not in the manual.

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/02/the-frankenreference.html  

Examples of how to use historical context to write about literature

An English II instructor asked for examples to show students how they would use research about historical context to analyze a work of literature, in the same way they are being asked to do in their research paper. I found these examples of literary criticism on "Young Goodman Brown" and "Everyday Use," two common EII readings, and thought I would share them in case other instructors are looking for something similar or you'd like to use them in your own instruction.

From Literature Resource Center:

"Hawthorne's 'Young Goodman Brown': Early Nineteenth-Century and Puritan Constructions of Gender" by James C. Keil, from The New England Quarterly.

"African-American Women Writers, Black Nationalism and Matrilineal Heritage" by Joan S. Korenman from CLA Journal.

From JSTOR:
"In Spite of it All: A Reading of Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use'" by Sam Whitsitt from African American Review.