Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to lesson four of gaining support for a cause.

I'm Ben, and this lesson is all to do with researching.

So all you'll need for this lesson is your computer and the web browser and then that's all you'll need.

So, other thing that I need you to do, is clear away any distractions that you've got.

So turn your phone off, turn the telly off, stop the dog from barking, if you've got a dog.

And other than that when you're ready, let's get started.

Okay, so in this lesson, we're going to learn how to use citations.

We're going to recognise the concept of plagiarism.

And then we're going to evaluate some online sources.

So that basically you're going to do some research related to that cause that you want to gain support for, that eventually is going to form your blog, okay? So let's move to the first exercise.

Well the first task for today is to look at definitions.

So you're going to in a second, you're going to head over to your worksheet to complete task one, but the test requires you to use the internet to find a definition for the following three terms. So citation, plagiarism and paraphrasing.

So to do this, you need to conduct research on the internet to help you find definitions for the three terms. And then you're going to use a worksheet to document your findings.

So what's important is to remember some of the learning that we did in lesson three, which was remembering that we must reference our sources, okay? so when you find the definition, and you pop that into your worksheet, make sure that you take the URL, the web address and put that into the worksheet.

And then also, if you can, it'd be really great if you could find an example that demonstrates your definition.

So get a definition and then get the URL, the links, and then finally, if you can find like a real use example of that term being used, that'd be really great, okay? So if you can pause this video now, so go to your worksheet and complete the table and then when you've done that, I'll be right here when you get back.

Okay, so let's have a look at what I found.

This is some research I did, so I found that citation is a word or a piece of writing taken from written work, okay? An example of that might, be all citations are taken from the 2007 edition of this text.

So basically what we're saying now, if we take somebody else's bit of work, it's absolutely fine to take a quotation from somebody else and put that in our work, because that will really help us backup and justify what we're trying to say.

But it's really important that we say where we got it from, so that would be a citation, okay? And you see here I've said, I've cited my reference as that comes from the Cambridge Dictionary definition, okay? So the next one is paraphrasing.

Now paraphrasing is to repeat something written or spoken using different words, often in a humorous form, or in a simpler and shorter form that makes the original meaning clearer.

So basically, that means taking somebody else's words, and then maybe rewording it into your own words.

Now, it does say often it's made shorter or maybe humorous.

It doesn't necessarily have to be those things.

But the point is, you're taking somebody else's words and rewording them, maybe to make it clearer or shorter, okay? And then finally, plagiarism.

You may have heard this term before, plagiarism sorry, is the process or practise of using another person's ideas or work and pretending that it's your own.

So that's, as it says there, that's basically taking somebody else's work and thinking, I really like the way they've done that, I'm just going to put it in my work, I'm not going to reference them, I'm not going to do any citation, and then people would just think that's my work.

Now, just be warned if you're planning to ever do that, because as it says on the screen here, I thought this was really interesting that the Cambridge Dictionary definition also included this.

It says the techniques for detecting plagiarism are becoming increasingly advanced.

That basically means it's harder to get away with.

So for example, if you were to find an image on the internet and you hadn't checked to see whether or not it had any Creative Commons licences, and you weren't referencing where you got that from, then there's lots of clever software out there, that can scan pieces of work and look at them and find the images and think, "Actually that's an image that's used somewhere else." Also, if you've written something down and you've used maybe a paragraph that you found in a book and thought, I'm going to include that, then the software out there that will scan your work, and it recognises when there's like a different writing style.

And when it picks that up, it thinks, "Hang on, that's not quite normal to how they're normally writing," and then it can use that database to try and find out where that information has come from.

And again, if you've not used citation, that would be an example of plagiarism.

Okay, so move on to the next task.

So task two on your worksheet is to do with putting into practise the three words of citation paraphrasing and plagiarism.

So on your worksheet, you'll find two poems. So this is an original poem.

The first one the left hand side is an original poem by somebody called William Wordsworth, you might have heard of him, hopefully.

Now he wrote a very famous poem, and it goes, "I wandered lonely as a cloud that flows on higher over valleys and vales and hills sorry, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils." So what I have done, is I've taken mine, I've read that and I've given you my version of that poem.

So I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not you think it's a better version or not.

So you've some questions related to the two different versions of the poem.

So if you can complete those in your worksheet, so I'll ask you to pause the video, head over to your worksheet, complete the questions.

And then once you're done, unpause the video, and we'll go through some of the answers.

Okay, so how did you get on with that? Hopefully, you really enjoyed my version of the poem.

It's not great, so I don't expect you to have done.

But if you look at the two versions, I have the original poem by William Wordsworth, and I have the alternative poem by Ben Garside.

Okay, so can you fill in the blanks for me bearing in mind what we just talked about? So the alternative poem has been, do you think it's, what word are we going to put in here? Is it citation, paraphrasing or plagiarism? Okay, so the alternative poem has been, please shout it out, three, two, one, it is paraphrased.

Okay, cause I paraphrase that, I haven't made it necessarily shorter, not really made it humorous, but what I have done is I've taken the original work and kind of put it, I put my spin on it, but basically reworded it slightly.

And it's pretty much exactly the same with some different words slotted in here and there.

So that would be paraphrasing, okay? And then without what, this is an example of what, okay? So first one, without three, two, one, it is citation.

So without citation, this is an example of three, two, one, plagiarism, okay? So it's not okay for me to have done what I've done, unless I credit the original author of the work because if I don't do that, even though it's not a direct copy of it, and even though I paraphrased it, it still would be plagiarism.

Okay, so let's move on to our next task, which is research in your cause.

Now, if you think back to lesson three, you looked at getting an idea for what cause you wanted to gain support for but you also looked at who your audience was going to be.

So we've made a really great start.

So the next step in our journey is to do some research to support this cause.

So, what I'd like you to do is before you start researching is I'd like to think back again to lesson three, about how we evaluate the credibility of the information that we come across, okay? So can you remember those four tips that we learned about in lesson three? So, see if you can think about them.

Now, number one, I'm going to go through what we talked about.

So number one was check the author and source.

Now remember, is always worth looking at the author who wrote it, and are they actually real people? And where did the information come from? Is it a place that we might trust? Number two, what's the purpose of the article? Is there any hidden reason? Are they trying to influence your opinion for any kind of bias way? It's of any bias behind the article in the first place, okay? So we're trying to evaluate whether or not you think it's a valid bit of information, or is there any kind of hidden agenda behind the article that you're reading, okay? Number three, check when the article was written.

So is it recent information or is it information that might now be out of date? So for example, if one of your causes that you'd like to gain support for is related to maybe CO2 emissions in the Earth's atmosphere, if we were looking at information that was written in maybe the year 2000, or 2005, then a lot have changed in that time.

So that information is very likely to be invalid and out of date.

But if you found something that was written last year, or even three or four years ago, I think that would be okay.

Okay, and then finally, remember to check the facts.

If you read something, try and think, is this actually going to be valid? How can I prove that this information is valid? And one of those methods might be, can you read other websites? Are there any other sources of information where you're reading similar or exactly the same things? So if you can back it up with more than one source, often that really helps with the validity of the information that you've come across, okay? So, I'd like you also to look at some images that you can include on your blog.

Remember, again, looking back at what we learned about in lesson three, when we looked at creating lesson two, when we looked at Creative Commons.

So you can use a Creative Commons search, and then that way, that'll help you find images that you are allowed to use, and also will help you credit images appropriately, okay? But remember, if you're using the Creative Commons search, please ask your parent or carer for permission before attempting it, because Oak National Academy are not responsible for any third party content that you might come across when you're searching for images, okay? So here's an example of the table that you've got on your worksheet.

So what you're required to do, is fill in all the columns for every bit of research that you come across.

So remember, the main part of this, is you're going to collect a lot of information that you can use to help support your cause.

So you might, don't just stop at one thing, look for various different sources of information and really useful things that you can include on your blog.

So what you've got to do when you come across things is you need to put the article name or the title of the website, so you can see I've got that as my example is, "Why is the plastic waste in our in our waterways increasing?" So that was the title of the article that I came across.

And that's going to help as a reminder for me, what the purpose of that article was, and not help me later on figure out where I'm going to insert that bit of information inside my blog, okay? Then get the URL to the web address of where you got it from.

So you can quickly go back to it, when you need to.

And also that's going to help with your citation as well.

Now, make any notes in that third column there, any notes that you think would help you or even a quote that you want to use inside your blog, so you can pop that in that column, and then finally, can't quite see cause of my webcam, so I'm just going to move out of the way just temporarily, I'll put myself up here.

So we can see the evaluate the credibility of the source.

What would be really great if you could prove, if only for yourself, prove that the information that you come across is valid.

So use our column as a prompt to put into practise some of the four tips that I just told you about in the previous slide.

So for example, in this information found here, I found out that it was written in June last year.

Now, I would say June last year is only a year ago.

So I would say that's up-to-date and relevant information.

And then also I've written these facts also appear on other websites.

So I found the information on plastic waste in the ocean, that kind of backs up this claim that I've got in the middle column.

So that's enough for me to feel confident, that this information that I want to include in my blog is not just made up by somebody, is actually facts, that will be helpful, okay? So if I move myself back over there.

So I know, all I need to do now is to go to task three on your worksheets.

So spend about 20 to 25 minutes, just really finding some great bits of information that will really backup the claims that you want to make on your blog, and also find some really nice images.

Don't spend too long on the images, because we only want to include maybe one or two images on our blog.

But really, what we want to do is get some really solid information that we can form the basis of our blog.

Okay, so pause the video and when you're done, you can you can restart the video.

Right, well that's it for this lesson.

So you've done a really great job so far.

And over the last two lessons, I think we've really formed a solid basis for the blog that we're going to write.

So you've thought about what the cause is going to be, you've looked at your audience, and you've also done some solid referencing and research that's going to help you use some facts and some images that we can build our blog, okay? So that will be next lesson.

So next lesson is all to do with making the blog and building it using some software, okay? So we would really love to see some of the work that you've done in this lesson.

So with that sharing with us some cool research that you've done, then please do that.

And if you'd like to do that, please ask your parents or carers to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and tagging @OakNational using the #LearnwithOak, okay? That's all for this lesson, I'm really looking forward to seeing you next lesson, where we'll get started with the blog, okay, so see you then.