The purpose of this assignment is to use online sources to find biographical information on your author.

Step 1: Mind It

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What information do you need?

Personal Facts – What is their life like (dates, family,  school, places lived,  hobbies, life experiences)?

 Influences – What experiences influenced their writing (favorite book as a child , author, movie, reason they began writing)?

Genres – What genre or genres does the author write in?  have they written any non-fiction works? Do they have a favorite genre?

  Writing Process – Where do they get their ideas? What is their writing process like (time it takes to complete a book, editing)?  What tools do they use (computer, paper and pencil, thesaurus, etc.). Are other people involved in their writing process (relatives, friends, reading groups)?

Quotes -What does the author consider important in life? What advice does he or she have for aspiring writers?

Step 2: Find It

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A. How will you find the information?

You will be using two different tools to search for information on the Internet: a Search Engine  and a Subject Directory. A Search Engine is a computer program that looks for specific words in a page and returns results based on how often that word or combination of words is on the page. A Subject Directory is a site with descriptions written by human beings who read and categorized the site. Both have their own strengths and weaknesses. A Search Engine will return many more results but many will probably be irrelevant. A Subject Directory will have fewer results but those results have been written by people who have actually visited the site.

B: What search words will help you get the best results?

Choose a search tool and enter your author's name. Before you hot search, you want to add a keyword that will help you retrieve the results you want.

Make a list of words that you think would return biographical information about your author. These will be your keywords when you do your search.

Generate (brainstorm) search keywords

1. Name -try both first name first and last name first (J.K. Rowling and Rowling, J.K.)
2. Add a keyword to the name  (biography, interview, influences, genre)
3. Try a different combination of name and keyword

Citing Sources

One of the most important parts of doing Internet research is giving credit to  your sources- letting your audience know where you got your information. Your citation should look like this. Ask your Librarian or Teacher for help if you can not find all the information.

Step 3: Design It

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How will you present this information?

Project Ideas

Resource Page 

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