Writing Term Papers with Cool New Digital Tools

Book excerpt: In the not-too-distant past, students were expected to turn in only handwritten or typed papers. However, with today's ease of access to the Internet and free applications, teachers are now expecting students to go beyond the confines of text-only productions. Various online programs make it possible to create multi-layered term papers that are rich in images, audio, and even video. And most of these tools are free to use! Students can now access their work from nearly anywhere that has an Internet connection. In the case of collaborative research projects, this same technology allows team members to work with each other even when they are in different locations. A wide variety of online and offline tools, techniques, and tips to help students research, write, edit, prepare, and present term papers are discussed and explained here. This revelatory guidebook to the latest in term paper technology also supports Common Core Standards for the reading of technical accounts and texts.