Research
Tidbits and
other reminders
for Unit 1-Ninth
Grade Honors
English
Written by Karen Thornton, 2013
What is a Primary Source?
Primary sources provide first-hand testimony
or direct evidence concerning a topic
under investigation. They are created by
witnesses or recorders who experienced the
events or conditions being documented.
A list of Primary Sources
Both published and unpublished documents:

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
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
Autobiography
Memoir
Oral history and artifacts
Original documents: journal, letter, interview, news
film footage, official records, diary
Government documents
Manuscripts
Art, film, video
What is a secondary source?
A
secondary source interprets and
analyzes primary sources. These sources
are one or more steps removed from the
event. Secondary sources may have
pictures, quotes or graphics of primary
sources in them.
Examples of secondary
sources:
A
magazine article, if it examines or
interprets previous findings
 An encyclopedia
 A text book
 A newspaper article (may include primary
sources such as pictures, a direct
interview, or an editorial)
Primary or Secondary?

transcript from an interview
 Your
history textbook
 Your
journal
A
movie
A
newspaper article (this gets tricky)
And these?
 An
oral history collected by a historian in
2010, which retells father/son stories told
by tribal moms and handed down from
generation to generation, as told to the
historian by a living Cherokee Indian.
 A box containing the belongings of a
POW who was never located. The
artifacts were found buried next to a
prison camp in Korea.
MULTIPLE MEANING WORDS
Pick the sentence that uses the underlined word
in the same way as the original sentence.
He mowed the yard on Sunday afternoon.
 1.
My stride is about one yard in length.
 2. My dog loves to run in the yard.
 3.A football field is 100 yards long.
Try another:
We exited through the door in the rear.
 1.
The new student sat in the rear of the
classroom.
 2. My sister had to rear her children all by
herself.
 3. Laura’s wish is to rear her children into
responsible adults.
Semi colons, not comma
splices!
 If
you combine two independent clauses
with a comma, you have created a runon sentence, or a comma splice. Instead,
combine them with a semi-colon, a
period, or a FANBOYS (coordinating)
conjunction. It is not difficult, you can do
it! Oops. I just wrote a comma splice.
How do I fix it?
PICK A WAY:
 It’s
not difficult; you can do it!
 It’s
not difficult and you can do it! (a
comma between two short independent
clauses is optional—I chose not to use
one)
 It’s
not difficult. You can do it!
What is an appositive?
An appositive is a noun or noun phrase that
renames another noun right beside it.
1.
2.
The insect, a large cockroach, is
crawling across the kitchen table.
Robbie, a hot-tempered tennis player,
charged the umpire and tried to crack
the poor man's skull with a racket.
Allusions are everywhere!
 An
allusion is a reference to a literary
work, a historical event, a song….
 So,
if I want to make a point, I might
allude to a reference that will help me
explain myself.
Examples:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih7N9
_VUU4U
 http://www.rareexception.com/Garden/
Pie.php
Allusions in “American Pie:”
 American
Pie: Buddy Holly died on
February 3, 1959, in a plane crash in Iowa
during a snowstorm. Its rumored that the
name of the plane was: American Pie.
 “With every paper I’d deliver:”Don
McLean's (the guy who wrote the song in
1972) only job besides being a full-time
singer/song writer was being a paperboy.
 Widowed
bride: Holley’s wife was
pregnant when he died.
 The
day the music died: The same plane
crash that killed Buddy Holly also tragically
took the lives of Richie Valens ("La
Bamba") and The Big Bopper ("Chantilly
Lace.") Since all three were so prominent
at the time, February 3, 1959, became
known as "The Day The Music Died."
“Drove my chevy to the levee,
but the levee was dry, and
this’ll be the day that I die”

Driving the Chevy to the levee almost
certainly refers to the three college students
whose murder was the subject of the film
'Mississippi Burning.' The students were
attempting to register as black voters, and
after being killed by bigoted thugs their
bodies were buried in a levee. Them good ol'
boys being: Holly, Valens, and the Big Bopper,
They were singing about their death on
February 3. One of Holly's hits was "That'll be
the Day"; the chorus contains the line "That'll
be the day that I die
Did you write the book of
love?
The Book of Love" by the
Monotones; hit in 1958."Oh I
wonder, wonder who... who,
who wrote the book of
love?"
Helter Skelter in a summer
swelter
"Helter Skelter" is a Beatles song that
Charles Manson, claiming to have
been "inspired"by the song (through
which he thought God and/or the
devil were taking to him) led his
followers in the Tate-LaBianca
murders.