Friday, December 15, 2006

The Persian Gulf War and the Iraq Occupation, 1990-2006



First, some questions about Wikipedia

1. Is it ok to use Wikipedia for research?

YES and NO. Yes, you can use Wikipedia as a starting place for your assignment. BUT you can NOT use Wikipedia as your ONLY source. Wikipedia is written by amateurs and fact-checked by amateurs! That means it often has errors and is often poorly-written or omits key facts.

So ALWAYS verify EVERY fact in Wikipedia from a SECOND SOURCE: a second source that is written by experts and fact-checked by experts (that means a World Book Encyclopedia, the Gale or SIRS online databases, or a library book).

2. Is it true that Wikipedia articles provide a citation for each article?

Yep, the rumors are true! Look on the left-hand side of every Wikipedia article page for this:
Toolbox
"Printable version" takes out the junk so you can print a "clean" version of a Wikipedia article.

"Cite this article" provides an MLA-formatted citation for a Wikipedia article.

ABOUT THIS PROJECT





Mr. Bradford's note: Below are links to three subject areas:

1. The history of Persian Gulf War I (the international coalition that ousted Saddam Hussein's army out of Kuwait in 1991)


2. The history of Persian Gulf War II
(the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003)

3. Current statistics on military and civilian casualties in Iraq, current news on Iraq

1. The history of Persian Gulf War I, 1990-1991

Wikipedia Desert Storm Article
(good overview but do NOT use as your only source!)
The Whirlwind War (military history)
The Gulf War (*from PBS--excellent resource!)
The Fog of War (history of the Persian Gulf War from the Washington Post)
A Timeline of Iraqi history, 1922-Present
Iraq Between Gulf War I and Gulf War II (timeline of key events)



2. The history of Persian Gulf War II, 2003-Present

Timeline of the War and Occupation

Occupation of Iraq (from Wikipedia--do not use as your only source!)
Archive of CNN stories about the Iraq War
Global Security Report on Iraq invasion/occupation by United States

3. Current statistics on military and civilian casualties in Iraq, current news on Iraq

An Overview of the US Occupation of Iraq from the Canadian Broadcasting Company (Excellent Resource!)
Gulf War Syndrome
Casualty Statistics on Gulf War, Part I

Casualty Statistics on Gulf War, Part II
A Nation at War (excellent resource on the occupation of Iraq by the US
...from the New York Times!)
Current News on Iraq from National Public Radio
Current News on Iraq from the British Broadcasting Company
Current News on Iraq from Yahoo! News

Sites listing war and/or civilian casualties:

Anti-War.com
Globalsecurity.org

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
Obleek.com (interactive animated map showing where soldiers have been killed throughout Iraq)


You can also try searching the Gale database, found on the library homepage:

CLICK ON THE BLUE GALE BUTTON ON THE LIBRARY PAGE.





THEN CLICK ON THE OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS BUTTON. Choose "Iraq" from the list of topics!


Remember: Gale is a digital library (online books). Gale provides the citation for you and you can email the Gale articles to yourself!



Instructions for home access (usernames and passwods) are on Page 19 of your student planner!

Another source for current news/articles is SIRS.
Click on this button on the library homepage.
Enter the search term: IRAQ WAR to access 470+ articles on Iraq, with the most recent article at the top of the list!
You can email the articles to yourself!

2 comments:

Francis Holland said...

I like your Wiki policy; no source should be the ONLY source in a report if other sources are available.

I also like the assignments you're helping students to undertake, because these assignments help them to better understand issues that are current in the new and political life.

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