Homework Timesavers on the Web

My sixth grader was up late last night as he worked on his first big Social Studies project, the one he assured me was near completion early in the three-day weekend. Alas, it turns out there was more research to be done, indeed, before he could cut and paste his writings and photos about Stone Mountain, Ga., onto white poster board.

The late hour made me think of kids and parents stretched for time and looking for some good tools to help young students find shortcuts to get their work done—without shortchanging school projects.

From my 7^th grade daughter and Lifehacker, here are two sites to help research paper writers complete that last time-consuming step of writing a paper after you feel like you're finished: the bibliography.

Easybib: Plug in the information you know about your sources, and the site automatically formats, alphabetizes, and prints your citation list. (My daughter's recommendation.)

Ottobib: Asks only for ISBN numbers, then shoots back all the biblio info. (Lifehacker's find.)

Son of Citation Machine: This one I found, and I like how it lets you choose from a variety of print and online sources, then asks for the relevant info to provide a correct citation.

Here's another tip from Lifehacker about using Microsoft Word's AutoSummarize if you need to have a summary page in a research paper. Click on "Tools," then "AutoSummarize," and it will grab key lines from long papers and put them in an abstract or line-by-line summary for some guidance.

For some good references for younger students, check in on my posts about homework help and safe research tools to help your grade-school kids get comfortable researching work online.

Once this posts, I'm off to bring my son's saxophone to school, the one he forgot because he was so tired this morning. If only there were a web tool for making sure that never happens again....