(Cross posted at drjansblog.com)
Well, as I have mentioned before (yes, yes, I am proud), I get to teach (adjunct) for Kaplan University. Now it’s been more than a couple of years since I got my doctorate from Vanderbilt (1986, to be specific-- I was a child). Now, I am teaching graduate students in education about the incredibly wonderful field of education.
And, in the time honored graduate exercises requirements, my students have to write research papers and do it RIGHT. At Kaplan, that means no plagiarizing and always using APA formating and referencing. I have had more than a few quick study sessions on APA, and I was bemoaning my fate to son Bo (a University of Oklahoma freshman) who told me about EASYBIB. You gotta love 2009, if you are quickly stepping up to citing references and bibliographies in APA or Turabian or even MLA. (And, if you don’t know what all those things are then just forget about this post because it’s something you don’t need.)
EASYBIB is this cool site (www.easybib.com) where you can go and type in the ISBN or titles or numerous ways to get your source and then bingo-bango, it gives the reference to you in the right format and even will prepare it for you to download to Word. I am so tickled that some genius minds came up with this. Now, I can write and research without the pain staking process of figuring out the nasty little details of correctly citing a source. I can even check the sources that my students are using for accuracy.
I am one happy chick (or old lady depending upon your context). Guess what it costs? Nothing for MLA or just about $15 a year for APA (and you can switch among all the styles depending on what format you need).
Here’s to you EASYBIB! I hope you guys are extremely successful and stay that way until I no longer need you.