Sunday, September 22, 2013

How to Cite YouTube and other Sources [Video]

Any time an idea is borrowed from a source—like a newspaper article, a YouTube video, a tweet, or a class lecture—that source needs to be cited. But that’s not all. The way citations are written is also important. Not only are there different citation formats to follow, like APA or MLA, but the citation of different source types, whether a blog post or a speech or a photograph, also vary, even if just slightly, e.g. capitalization. In this video, English instructor Renee Swensen explains citation styles and documentation, essential knowledge for any writer to have in order to avoid plagiarism.

Watch the video:




How to Cite YouTube & Other Sources from Turnitin on Vimeo.



READ ALONG…
Citation Styles and Documentation: Avoid plagiarism by learning how to cite YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and scholarly journals


MLA, APA, CMS, CSE etc.  If you have heard of these before, you have likely been asked to write a paper using them.  What do these acronyms stand for?

Let’s talk about your different courses for a moment.  You might have an English class, a psychology class, or a history class.  Different courses are housed under different fields of study and different fields have different groups who meet to decide how scholarly writing in that field should be presented.

For example, English falls under the Modern Language Association, psychology falls under the American Psychological Association.  These associations have manuals that explain how papers should be written in those disciplines.

CMS is called Chicago Manual of Style, which a history course might call for or CSE for Biology and other science courses.

The trick with these documentation styles is realizing you don’t have to memorize the style, you simply need to follow the guidelines, and use these guidelines as a reference.  That means you might need to look this information up each time your write an academic paper.

Guidelines will specify how the paper should be laid out, such as spacing, margins, headers, page numbers, etc.  It will also detail how to document any outside sources you used in the paper, such as in-text citations, footnotes, works cited pages or reference pages.

Knowing how to lay out the paper according to the documentation style is one thing, but knowing how to cite sources is quite another, and usually the most challenging for students.

Let’s walk through a practice source and look at how to break that source down to determine what kind of citation I need.  We’ll use APA as an example.

The first thing you need to do when looking at a source, especially one you accessed online, is determine what type of source it is.

This source gives you some clues.  It is a double-sided page, has an abstract or summary, a list of references, the title of the source, the main source may even have “journal of…” or looks like it has a specific audience of scholars.  This is definitely an academic journal.  You need to be able to differentiate between a journal, article in an online newspaper or a blog.

In order to cite the source correctly, you need to look up the type of source in a reference manual, so you can see what information is required in the citation.  These manuals often contain model citations for you to follow.

For a journal article I need to be able to match the information in the citation example with the information for my particular source.

A citation for a journal article looks like this:

Author. (year of publication). Title of article. Title of Academic Journal. Volume (Issue), pages.

Author’s last name and initials, the year it was published, the title of the articles (not in capital letters), the title of the academic journal italicized, the volume number, the issue number in parentheses, and the page numbers.  Luckily, I don’t have to memorize all this, just match my source with this sample.

Mishra, A.

The author of the article is Mishra, A. The year, (2013).  The title is cloud computing for library resources and services.  The journal title isJournal of Library, Information and Communication Technology, the volume is 5 and the issue is (1-2), with the page numbers 1-9.

An MLA citation for this journal would have some differences, such as capitalized titles, quotation marks, etc., so you need to reference up your required documentation style to get it right.

Now you have to remember that if you borrowed any ideas from a source, like a YouTube video you watched, Twitter, Facebook or a class lecture, you have to cite that source in your paper.

How to cite YouTube

APA style:

Author, A. A. [Screen name]. (year, month day). Title of video [Video file]. Retrieved from http://xxxxxxxxx

MLA style:

Last name, First name. OR Username. “Title of Video.” Title of Site. Name of institution or publisher, Day Month Year of publication. Medium. Day Month Year of access.

Just remember that you need to take the time to get your citations right to avoid plagiarism.

See how to cite other common sources, including: An interview; speeches and lectures, a painting, sculpture or photograph; films or movies; sound recordings

Saturday, September 21, 2013

How to Create Custom Google Chrome Shortcuts - Launching Extensions & Browser Actions

In the age of Information explosion and internet era, web browsers are not only for browsing web pages but also for doing something beyond our expectations. Most prominent example we can point out for such a browser is Google Chrome, based on open-source Chromium project, which the Silicon Valley technology giant owns. Without considering the software or platform you use, Shortcut keys are truly worthy, especially for those who love quicker and productive techy life.

In that sense, I hope that you will love to know about how you can create your own Google Chrome shortcuts and hence making usage like never before.




Create Custom Google Chrome Shortcuts

Here, I am going to make use of some in-built abilities of Google Chrome as well as some powerful extensions. First, I will set up custom keyboard shortcuts for specific extensions using in-built feature of Google Chrome. I also hope that this tutorial will help you in replacing hard-to-use Google Chrome shortcuts by easier ones at instance.

Google Chrome Shortcuts for Launching Extensions

As mentioned earlier, Google Chrome has a pre-built feature for assigning keyboard shortcuts for each browser extensions you have installed. Albeit the fact that it is a less-known feature, it is a truly productive one. When compared to the latter option, involving a third-party extension, the process of assigning keyboard shortcut is an easy job. You just have to follow steps mentioned below.

Step One

Launch Google Chrome browser and navigate to the extension manager section. You may make use of either of following methods.
  • Click on ‘Options button’, right to address bar -> Tools -> Extensions and it will lead you to the Extension Manager
  • Type ‘chrome://extensions’ in your address bar and hit Enter
    Google Chrome Extension Manager 

Step Two

There, you can see information about each Google chrome extension you have installed, along with highlighting effect for active ones. There are various options for enabling/disabling extensions, deleting and managing options and permissions. However, you have to scroll down and find out the option ‘Keyboard Shortcut and click on it.
Google Extension Manager: Create Shortcuts for Apps

Step Three

Instantly, you can see a pop-up window like shown in the following image. Size of the pop-up box may change according to the number of extensions, you have installed.

Keyboard Shortcuts Pop Up
As you can see in the image, there are no shortcuts set for extensions. Now, you can start assigning shortcuts for each extension, shown there.

Step Four

For assigning Google Chrome shortcuts for each extension, you have to click on the corresponding filed of that section. Once you have clicked, the background of the field will turn red along with one message ‘Type a shortcut’, just like in following image.

Typing Shortcut Extension Manager

Step Five

Now, you have to enter the shortcut, by pressing which you want to open the extension later. For instance, we have assigned the shortcut ‘Ctrl+Shift+W’ for WebRank SEO extension.



Type Shortcut Key Extension

However, you should try to not to give the in-built shortcuts of Google Chrome (like Ctrl+T, Ctrl+W) in those sections in order to avoid the clash. Once you have given all the details correctly, you may click on ‘OK’ button, which will close the pop-up window.

Yes! You have successfully assigned Google Chrome shortcuts for your favourite extensions.

Google Chrome Shortcuts for Various Browser Actions

Even though the former method can help you in activating extensions instantly, Google Chrome does not have an option for controlling browser actions. Therefore, I have to make use of an extension for doing the job neatly. You just have to keep track on following steps to assign Google chrome shortcuts for browser actions.

Step One

First, as I said earlier, you have to install one extension in your Google Chrome browser. You can download this FREE extension, Shortcut Manager, from Chrome Web Store.

Shortcut Manager Extension Installation Step One

Step Two

After installation, taking not more than some seconds, you can see a button, like shown below, near to the address bar of Chrome.



Shortcut Manager Extension Installed

When you click on it, you can see a message like shown below. From the dialogue box, select option ‘See all settings / Add new shortcuts’, which will lead you to another page, the options page of the extension.

Step Three

The options dashboard of Shortcut manager will be like in the following image, consisting of various sections. From the right top section, click on ‘Add a new shortcut’

Shortcut Manager Extension Installed Add New Shortcut


On the right section, you can see multiple columns with different labels. On the first column, named Shortcut key’ you have to type the shortcut. For doing that, click on filed and enter the shortcut keys combination. As you cannot use the backspace for correcting short key, you will have to hit the Clear button for erasing the shortcut key you have entered. In case, if you click the backspace button, it will be also included in the shortcut combination.
Shortcut Manager Save Shortcut

Step Four

In the below section, you can see a field named Action, where you have to define the browser action according to your desire. There are two options available in this section.

1. Browser Action

Here, you have a list of browser actions to choose from. List includes opening new tab, opening tab in new window, moving tabs, webpage navigation, scrolling, screen capture, navigate to downloads, open nth tab, take screenshots etc. In case if you have selected option to open favourite URL, you should give the URL next to the field.

Shortcut Key Working Extension Browser Actions

2. Execute JavaScript

You can assign one shortcut for executing a specific JavaScript. You have to select the latter option and then give the JavaScript file URL or the script itself in corresponding fields.
Shortcut Key Working Extension Enter Shortcut Key

Step Five

You have an option for restraining effects of specific Google Chrome shortcuts in some sites, even though all pages will have effect of shortcuts according to the default setting. If you want to restrict so, you should give URL’s in the section called ‘URL Patterns’

URL Patterns Shortcut Manager

Final Step

If you have given all things correct and accordingly, you can now go back to the top section of page and click ‘Save’. After the re-launching of Google Chrome, the extension will be working fine as usual.

Shortcut Manager Save Shortcut








In addition, you have options for restricting or disabling some Google Chrome shortcuts in sometime. You shall go to the options page, select the corresponding shortcut from list and hit ‘Disable’ to remove its effect from Google Chrome immediately.

Conclusion

Here, I have shown you some options for assigning custom Google Chrome shortcuts for browser actions as well as for launching extensions. Hope both of these methods will be useful for your quicker techy life. Do you know any other methods for assigning Google Chrome shortcuts? Do let us know via comments.

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