ProPublica -- "Journalism in the Public Interest"

This might be a good investigative journalism website to know about:

ProPublica is an independent non-profit newsroom focusing on investigative journalism concerning public interest topics. ProPublica is led by distinguished former editors from publications such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

Licensed under Creative Commons, ProPublica allows republishing of articles and graphics for free, as long as credit is given with a link to ProPublica and content is not edited or sold.

Article: What the web knows about you

Here is the link to the web article from Computerworld that was just pointed out by one of the J233 instructors. The author of this article also published a similar article in Computerworld magazine, "What Google knows about you."

New Research Guide for JOUR 233

The library has just subscribed to LibGuides, new software for creating library research guides. I tried my hand at creating one for J233, so check it out here. I've also linked it to the course in Bb (see the Announcement section as to where the LibGuide is on Bb).

Keep in mind that this guide serves all sections of JOUR233, so there may be a page in the guide that addresses something you are not doing for your particular section, such as creating a blog or backgrounding an individual person. However, it may be something you'd like to know more about anyway so go ahead and use the info!

Whenever possible I've tried to link other things into the J233 LibGuide such as this blog, relevant CommWiki articles and so forth.

If there is anything I can add, delete or otherwise improve the LibGuide, please let me know!

Primary Sources

Primary sources are first-person accounts of events such as diaries, letters, written manuscripts, video or audio recordings, photographs, etc. that were either created at the time of the event or soon thereafter. Primary sources could also be in the form of material created long after an event in the form of memoirs or oral histories.

To further understand what primary sources are with examples, see a description of primary sources with examples from the CommWiki.

Some primary source directories:

• Archives USA
• Repositories of Primary Sources

Other Alden Library primary source holdings are located in the Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections

Google Reader in Plain English

If you're new to using the Google Reader RSS feed reader, you might find this video from Common Craft useful. Check out their YouTube channel for more videos. These are great for when you encounter a new technology (like Twitter) and need to know the basics right away.

Some More Blogs

Now that you've had a chance to explore blogs for your assignment, here are a few more media/journalism/communication blogs that would be useful additions to your favorite RSS reader.

• Advertising Age: Bills itself as "your online source for marketing and media news" (from footer)
  
• Broadcasting & Cable: B&C is a weekly trade publication covering all aspects of the television industry. Its website provides breaking news and analysis.
  
• Columbia Journalism Review: The CJR aims to "stimulate excellence in journalism in the service of a free society," and its website "delivers real-time criticism and reporting."
  
• Online Journalism Blog: Covers online journalism and reporting in all its forms.
• Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: The website for an "independent, non-partisan public opinion research organization that studies attitudes toward politics, the press and public policy issues." Data and analysis from their monthly surveys are available to the public for free (About).
• Pew Internet & American Life Project: As project of the Pew Research Center, the Pew Internet & American Life Project provides "reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life" (About Us)
• Romenesko: Provides daily news and links on the media industry and journalism (About). Hosted on the Poynter website, an excellent source of news and training for journalists.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list, but will get you started if you're new to blogs about media/communication/journalism. Do you have any other favorites?

Citation Styles

If your instructor requires a specific citation style for your final assignment, you'll need to choose a single citation style and stick to it. Here are some resources to help you make those citations perfect.

APA Style:

• You can find several copies of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association at the Learning Commons Reference Desk (2nd floor). You can also find simplified versions of the APA guides, such as the Concise Rules of APA Style.
• The Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides a clear overview of the style requirements and citation rules for the APA style.
  
• If you need to cite a type resource that is not covered in the APA manual, check out the APA Style Guide to Electronic References (OU only).

MLA Style

• There several copies of the most recent edition (2009) of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers at the Learning Commons Reference Desk.
• The OWL site has a good overview of the MLA style, as a concise overview of the changes to the MLA style in the 2009 edition.

Chicago Style

• Find a copy of the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style at the Learning Commons Reference Desk.
  
• The Ohio State Library website has a good overview of the citation style for the major types of resources as does the Writing Center website of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Citation Tools: The following are some tools to help you create your citations. While they are useful, do remember that ultimately you're responsible for providing complete and correct citations in your papers and projects. Always check citations made from these resources before you turn in your assignment.

• All OU students have access to RefWorks, which lets you create a personal database of citations and provides tools to help create your citations. There is definitely a bit of a learning curve here, but once you know how to use this tool, it can save you a lot of time. See this page on using Ref Works for more info.
• The Citation Builder from the North Carolina State University Libraries will generate citations in the major styles for most of the basic types of resources.
• Zotero is a relatively new tool that works with the Firefox browser to help you organize and cite your research materials. See the Zotero Support page for more information on this open source tool.