Interview: EducationNews.org |
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| An Interview with Dorothy Mikuska : Paper Tools Pro Online
Michael F. Shaughnessy
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
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1. What is PaperToolsPro Online?
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PaperToolsPro Online is a research management program for student and professional writers.In the past, 3 x 5 note cards provided the medium for gathering information as quotations, paraphrases or summaries and for documenting the sources in the correct format.Although PaperToolsPro is an electronic version of this same process, it was designed to engage users in the thinking process necessary to put information in their own words-their vocabulary, sentence structure, voice-and identifying each note by a descriptor and up to three keywords.Finally, users enter bibliographic information and the program creates a bibliography entry and citation in the chosen style.
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Originally PaperToolsPro was designed to be downloaded or installed from a disk.In 2008 we wrote the program to be accessed online from the user's Internet browser.The web-based version makes the software and any upgrades available from any computer, PC or Mac, using any operating system.
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2. When did you start this?
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My partner, Ron Slatin, who did the programming, and I began developing PaperToolsPro in the spring of 2003.We began developing the online version in the summer of 2007 and testing it with high school students in the fall of 2008.
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3. What exactly is the web site?
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The website, www.PaperToolsPro.net, serves several purposes.First, it is the URL where a subscription can be purchased and where users login to use the software. It also provides information about the use of the software and explains how the software works and how to use it to write a research paper.Additionally, the site provides reviews and testimonials from users, comparisons to other software used for writing research papers, discussions on why writers struggle with writing research papers and with plagiarism, the educational research behind the creation of PaperToolsPro, and a free PaperToolsPro training manual for staff development programs.
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4. How does this help students become better writers?
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As Donald Murray put it, "writing is thinking.
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" PaperToolsPro promotes higher order thinking processes necessary for writing research papers, while it performs the lower order thinking tasks, such as formatting bibliography and citation entries and sorting the notes by established criteria.The software requires users to create a scaffold of information so they see how each piece of information fits into the whole project and helps to explain the thesis statement.
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Too often students are evaluated primarily on lower order skills and therefore focus on them inordinately.In reality, students enjoy the higher order thinking that PaperToolsPro provides.
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As a high school English teacher for 37 years, I have never run across a student who has excitedly told me that she learned a period goes after the author's name and the title in a bibliography is done in MLA style.However, I have often found a student at my doorstep early in the morning wanting to share something she researched the night before.We want students to understand that writing is higher order thinking.
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5. How does it help students understand what plagiarism is?
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The Resource pages, accessible from every window of the program, are about plagiarism: the seriousness of the offense; what plagiarism is; ways to avoid academic dishonesty; the role of time management; copyright infringement issues.
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Unintentional plagiarism usually appears in student work because information is not put in the student's own words.Instead, the original passage will contain synonyms and ellipses rather than a translation of the original passage into the student's understanding.To help in the translation process, two textboxes, one above the other, appear in the window for note taking. The top textbox is for the quotation, the original passage in its original form; the bottom textbox for the paraphrase or summary in the student's words.Students can compare their paraphrase to the original passage and visually recognize the similarity, or hopefully dissimilarity, between the two entries.If the two are similar, the student knows he needs to rewrite the paraphrase.Just as important, this revision makes the student think about and understand what the quotation is saying rather than merely tinker with the words.
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A student's notes can be saved as an html file and attached to an email, so teachers can monitor student work throughout the writing process. This allows for important educational dialogue to occur prior to completion of the research paper.
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Published December 16, 2008
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PaperToolsPro featured in University Business: |
(http://www.universitybusiness.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=829&p=3)
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| Plagiarism Prevention |
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ePen&Inc. and M3Designs have partnered up to create PaperToolsPro, a software program designed to simplify note taking, prevent plagiarism, and help writers learn good researching skills and ethics. It is designed for writers to enter publication information for bibliography entries and citations, take notes either as quotations or in their own words, and identify information with descriptors and keywords. It records sources and page numbers; creates bibliography and citation entries in MLA, APA, ACS, CBE, AAAS, and Chicago styles; and organizes notes with a search query. The software can also transfer notes with citations into a rough draft on a word processing page, as well as import sources as citations and bibliography entries from citation management programs such as Endnote. Available for Mac and PC, PaperToolsPro is available by CD or download for $55. It also can run off of a memory stick or iPod. Volume pricing and site licenses are available. Learn more at www.papertoolspro.com.
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Comments from high school teachers using PaperToolsPro... |
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| I enjoyed using your PaperToolsPro. It was useful in helping students avoid plagiarism and organizing their information.. Overall I think it was an excellent learning experience. Nancy Dent, English teacher, Clinton High School, Clinton Mississippi |
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| Every year students plagiarize, until this year because they used PaperToolsPro, software that helped them prevent plagiarism and enhance their learning. To my delight all my students turned in their own words, ideas, analysis and synthesis. PaperToolsPro assisted my students with every step of the research process from brainstorming to creating the bibliography to focusing on analyzing and synthesizing their topic. The days of collecting manila envelopes chock-full of random, out of order, barely legible note cards are over as well as the associated opportunities for inadvertent plagiarism. This English teacher's huzzah is in order for PaperToolsPro. Colleen Hiles, English teacher, Glenbard South High School, Glen Ellyn, Illinois |
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Comments from high school students using PaperToolsPro... |
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| The note cards and bibliography were a great help in the program. -Hanna K |
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| The tutorial was very detailed and answered 95% of my questions.
I recently finished my research paper on Franz Kafka using the
program and PTP made the process of writing and organizing the
paper so much less stressful!!.It was easy to compile the notes
and copy and paste them to a word document..I ended up with a
14 page paper that I am very proud of. -John M |
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| It helps save time! -Kim K |
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| I loved that once you put the bibliography info in for one card
you could choose to put it on other cards and then it put them
all together for you in the end. -Stephanie P |
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| I found myself connecting to other notes..Finding a way to organize
typed notes on the computer beats the labor of writing any day.
-Jessica L |
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| I enjoyed using PaperTool Pro for my research project. It helped
me by making me put each quote into my own words, something I
usually don't do until I am writing my paper. After I had done
that, it was really easy to fit everything into my paper, because
I had already paraphrased everything. -Carla B |
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| The concept of typed notecards is fantastic, since it saves so
much time compared to writing out notecards by hand. I also love
how easily the notecards and bibliography can be transferred to
(MS) Word. -David T |
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| Typing all of my work in the spaces was definitely easier than
having to hand-write all of it out onto separate notecards.
Everything was neat and organized, and after a few tries, very
easy to understand. I read the tutorial to help me become
acclamated to working with PTP, and the directions were very
useful. -Jackie F |
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| It's a great help! It makes the whole tedious and seemingly
interminable process of writing notecards so much easier and faster.
And there's no problem of losing any of the information due to a
faulty paperclip (I am guilty of this) or having any incorrect
citations or worse, NO citations. All the information is stored
safely away on the hard drive, and filed under all the correct
headings and sources. It's wonderful. :) I feel as if a good deal
of the tension that comes with writing these types of papers has
just dissipated, leaving me free to explore and develop my ideas
more carefully. -Huma R |
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| Working with Paper Tools Pro helped me organize my information much faster than if I had been using note cards. In the past my note cards had gotten lost, dirty, or crumpled up. For my English project, there were three people in my group and putting all of our info on one PaperToolsPro account allowed us to not overlap sources and be able to communicate through the website. Masha S. |
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| PaperToolsPro was extremely helpful for my group. Working with more than one other person, the Ideas Page kept all of our ideas organized. We could all log in at different times to use it, so we didn't have to keep sending emails back and forth updating each other. I also liked the Ideas Page because it kept us focused so we knew our goal throughout and didn't get distracted. Also I loved not having to make my own works cited; it's such a pain using NoodleTools and other MLA software that make us answer 70 questions. Thanks again!! Dhara S. |
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| The actual act of creating my note cards flew by after I got the hang of it, and I was able to make ten good note cards in five or ten minutes, which is nice when I only have about twenty minutes to work at a time. Andrew P.
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It helped in my particular case since I am researching Sartre, and his philosophy of existentialism can often be confusing if simply read directly from the source. By providing an opportunity to translate somebody else's words into my own words while having the direct quotation right there, I was much better able to understand certain concepts. Liana F.
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PaperToolsPro made the bibliography for me, which was wonderful because I never did it right before. The Ideas Page made me think more about the ideas for my project and having the 3 different key words made me think more about what that specific piece of information meant as a whole to my project. Krystal F.
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I liked the fact that it was a program that was online so there was no need to lug around all the actual note cards which is such a hassle. On PaperToolsPro itself, I loved having the Ideas Page. If a random thought that pertained to the project just came to me, I had somewhere to write it down where I could actually find it. I also liked that we could review all the note cards as a whole. Michelle B.
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I can completely understand how the program would cut down on plagiarism because of the space for both direct quotations and also for paraphrasing. When it came to writing the paper, it simplified the process because I had already restated my sources in my own words. Leah B.
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For this project especially, the note cards became so numerous (over 100) that I was so glad for the search and organize option of PaperToolsPro. This was extremely helpful when it came time to write the paper, since I could search for notes by slugs or keywords. To me, the organize/search through note cards option is the most valuable part of PaperToolsPro. I will definitely be using this program in college! Durga T.
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First and foremost, this site is an excellent idea. It takes the resources that can be acquired by NoodleTools and takes it an extra step further, involving itself in the whole research process. The ubiquity and centralization of the entire research process helped me to make better decisions before I started to write my paper, and to make better decisions of what exactly to include from what I researched. Justin K.
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I was required to use NoodleTools for a psychology project so I can really compare PaperToolsPro with NoodleTools. Basically it is the same thing. However, I recommend that PaperToolsPro because it has a crisper feel and visually appealing. Love the Ideas Page because that is a great place to type in random thoughts. Overall if I had to pick between PaperToolsPro or NoodleBib, I would pick PaperToolsPro. NoodleBib is way too babyfied and is irritating with how the note cards are setup. Grace S.
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Comments from college students and other researchers... |
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| If only I had it during high school and college! I think the
interface is quite user-friendly and accessible. The juxtaposition
of the quotation and "in your own words" boxes is an especially
nice touch. I remember making my mountain of notecards, then
immediately forgetting whether I had copied directly or paraphrased
- this ended up holding up my whole writing process as I had to hunt for
all the original source material over again. The bibliography-
making tool is a godsend, too, and I'm sure it'll especially come
in handy for classes where professors are sticklers for proper
punctuation (always the most tedious part of compiling works cited
list. -Wailin Wong, Reporter, Dow Jones Newswires |
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| I have found PaperToollsPro to be an excellent writing tool when paired
with programs like Endnote. Instead of just noting the citation,
PaperToolsPro bridges source and paper through its digital note
card format. This allows paper writers to easily track information
and thoughts. -Nathan Harbacek, Student, Princeton University |
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| Keywords are the essence of bibliographic control. With PaperToolsProT
keywords as well as a descriptor identify each note entry, and with
the Idea Page the researcher can maintain a search history of
keywords. As a result, this software becomes a painless, smooth
interface between databases and a well-researched paper. -Stan
Schmidt, Reference Librarian, Northeastern University and DePaul
University |
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| I am grateful for the experience and care that went into producing
this work. It gives great peace of mine that my own work will be
authentic and properly reflect the sources referenced. -Dr. Hofmaier,
Hofmaier Chiropractics |
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| If I were a student, freshman or senior, I would appreciate having this
(PaperToolsPro) disc, not only because it facilitates the organizing
and storage of notes but also because it encourages the student to be a
discerning and honest researcher. Your introductory notes are important.
Recent public accusations of plagiarism in the press have made us
conscious of its seriousness. And so, your definition of the term, as
well as its legal and academic consequences, is important. Also, I
found PTP's distinction between "facts" on the web vs. facts in newspapers,
periodicals, and books to be most helpful. In addition to its importance
in the writing of a paper, it trains the mind to be discerning at a time
when 'anything in print is truth'. I found the work spaces for key words,
quoted passages, and the summary/paraphrase of quotes to be particularly
helpful for three reasons: comprehension, clarity, and launching of new
directions for the paper. And "Questions to Research" begs the student
to dig deeply into his/her subject. Your program is indeed an educational
tool because it goes beyond mechanical facility to the training of the mind.
Nice. -L. Rosemary Coleman, Professor Emerita, Benedictine University |
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| The product is very good and I consider it an educational tool rather than
a reworking of a notebook/outliner/mindmapping/ information manager affair.
As you rightly say in your supporting material, the danger with this other
type of material is that students just acquire masses of information with
no real learning taking place and there is a very real danger of plagiarism.
-Robert Fairbrother, student. |
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