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Seventh Grade Social Science (For Homeschool or Extra Practice)
Seventh Grade Social Science (For Homeschool or Extra Practice)
Seventh Grade Social Science (For Homeschool or Extra Practice)
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Seventh Grade Social Science (For Homeschool or Extra Practice)

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Over 50 discussion questions and activities, and 50 quiz questions, fill this comprehensive social science book. The book covers the following topics:
Gathering and Using Evidence, Chronological Reasoning, Comparison and Contextualization, Economics and Economic Systems, Geographic Reasoning, and Civic Participation
If you are homeschooling (or if you are just trying to get extra practice for your child), then you already know that social science workbooks and curriculum can be expensive. Homeschool Brew is trying to change that! We have teamed with teachers and parents to create books for prices parents can afford. We believe education shouldn’t be expensive.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherBookCaps
Release dateJul 10, 2014
ISBN9781311018519
Seventh Grade Social Science (For Homeschool or Extra Practice)

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    Seventh Grade Social Science (For Homeschool or Extra Practice) - Terri Raymond

    About Us

    Homeschool Brew was started for one simple reason: to make affordable Homeschooling books! When we began looking into homeschooling our own children, we were astonished at the cost of curriculum. Nobody ever said homeschool was easy, but we didn't know that the cost to get materials would leave us broke.

    We began partnering with educators and parents to start producing the same kind of quality content that you expect in expensive books...but at a price anyone can afford. 

    We are still in our infancy stages, but we will be adding more books every month. We value your feedback, so if you have any comments about what you like or how we can do better, then please let us know!

    To add your name to our mailing list, go here: http://www.homeschoolbrew.com/mailing-list.html

    Section 1: Gathering and Using Evidence

    The Seven Steps of Research

    Social studies include five main areas of study. Geography is the study of people, places, and environments. History is a study of the record of the past. Culture encompasses the beliefs, laws, and ways of living. Economics takes a look at how people use their resources through the production and exchange, and use of goods and services. Government consists of the people who create, enforce, and settle disagreements of laws.

    Regardless of which area or areas we study, the complexity of social studies is guaranteed to raise questions from all of us. Part of our responsibility as students and citizens is to be able to find answers to these questions using factual evidence. We must learn good research skills and use them to understand our world through its people, culture, economy, and government today and in the past.

    Research means carefully searching to collect information on a particular subject. The first step in research is to identify your topic and develop it into a question that you will answer. Identify the keywords and main concepts in your question. For example, if you are planning on researching the question "What are fair working conditions in the United States," you will identify fair working conditions as the concept and keywords. If your question is longer and more extensive, you may have more keywords and more than one main concept. Your question should be narrow enough that it allows you to focus your information search, but broad enough that it requires more than a one word answer.

    The second step in research is to find background information on your topic. Use your keywords to find materials on the subject you wish to research. A dictionary will help you define the words you are using. Encyclopedias will offer you some general background information to get you started by building a foundation of knowledge that you can use as a springboard to other informational materials. Often, background information will have a bibliography. The bibliography is a list of sources that were used to write the article. Use the bibliography to find those sources. They often will have more information available to you.

    The third step in research is to find other literature that is available. As previously mentioned, you will most likely be able to find several sources listed in the bibliographies that were in your background information. Guided keyword searches on the internet will open up many more sources for your use, but you must use caution and be certain your internet sources are credible. Often, blogs and editorials are not credible sources for background information, but may be useful to expose alternative viewpoints and varying opinions on your subject.

    Periodicals and articles are good supplemental information to your background information. Your fourth step in research is to provide supplementary material. Your background information is often considered to be from primary sources. Articles from periodicals and scholarly journals that support your primary information are considered to be supplemental sources. They provide secondary information that supports your main source or sources. It is very important that you provide supplemental material. Even though you may have one source with accurate information, it is your job to prove that the source has correct information. This happens when you use more than one source and integrate these materials together to support your main sources.

    A good fifth step to incorporate into your research is to find visual and auditory materials that supplement your sources. These materials assist in learning by using the other senses. Videos and audio recordings can help you and your readers understand the material and explain in depth concepts, sometimes better than the written word. Clips from video documentaries, spoken word recordings, illustrations, graphs, charts, and pictures are excellent supplemental materials that are geared toward visual and auditory senses that fully allow people to engage in your material.

    The sixth step is to evaluate the information you have found. Consider the authors of the sources you have found. Are they knowledgeable on the subjects or are they ordinary people who have written opinion pieces? Do they hold degrees and careers in the subject area? What other projects or research have they done on this information? How are they credible sources of information? Book reviews will help you evaluate the reliability and usefulness of the information presented to you. If you are using periodicals, ensure that they are scholarly periodicals. Consider their format, appearance, and intended audience (who was the article written for?). Are your web documents accurate, objective, and current? They should be. Consider multiple sources so you can see if the information is aligned with other information that is available to you. Your information should support a common view, but consider alternatives as well. There are always at least two sides to an argument and a credible researcher will always discuss multiple views.

    Finally, your seventh step in research is to cite your information accurately. Citing your sources allows others to look at your sources and ensures that they are provided. If you do not provide your sources, your work is not credible and has no authority. Also, in academic and professional settings, research without citations is known as plagiarism, or using someone else’s work as your own. A good rule is that every time you use information from a source, you should document your source. If you use someone’s exact words, it should be cited in quotation marks. If you paraphrase their works, you still need to cite your sources.

    There are many different ways to cite your sources. APA citation and MLA citation are only a couple of the most common citation styles. The guidelines for all citations require you to cite your sources inside your text and in a bibliography at the end of your paper. You will learn more about citations throughout your education, but it is important that you know about citations so you can build on the knowledge.

    Bias

    Bias refers to preferences and inclination, especially those that inhibit judgment. When thinking about bias, it is important to realize that not everything you read is one-hundred percent factual. Sometimes, writers write with the intent to persuade their audience, the people who read their work, to believe in a certain side of an argument or behave a certain way.

    If, for example, you are researching fair working conditions in the United States, you may take your research from many different sources. One of your sources may be written from the point of view of an employer from a large company who claims to provide his employees with fair working conditions. He might state that all employees need cubicles with comfortable chairs, a lunch break, and a bathroom. However, he may not give his employees more than one break a day and expect them to sit at their desks in a hot, stuffy room with poor lighting for ten hours every day. To the employees, those might not be fair working conditions.

    You should also pay attention to the date the article was written. Working conditions in the early 1900s were much different than they are today and poor working conditions that are frowned upon today may have been acceptable one hundred years ago.

    The place where the article was written and were the subject of the article lived may also play a large part in affecting the viewpoint of the employer and author. Working conditions that are acceptable in a small town in South Africa differ greatly from working conditions in the large city of New York, NY. Use good judgment in analyzing your sources for biases, intended audience, and relevance to your subject.

    Author Purpose and Perspective

    When analyzing your sources, it is important to understand the author’s point of view. Take

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