This is a great article about how to break down the whole research process. Often times it can be an overwhelming endeavor. Using one of the strategies librarians often employ will help students be successful and not feel as if the project has a life of it's own!! What is important to note is the author does not stress the library databases but acknowledges in the comment section how important they are to producing a high quality product!

http://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/11/18/research-using-big6-skills-better-grades

Book Blog of the Week:

The Boys in the Boat: nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at 
 the 1936 Berlin Olympics / Daniel James Brown

You know a non-fiction book is great when it reads like compelling fiction! For me The Boys in the Boat is similar in read to the crazy successful and amazing Unbroken / Laura Hillebrand where you become so invested in the main character you feel as if you know them and want them to survive and succeed. Not only am I getting to know Joe Rantz, the young man at the heart of the story, but the author makes the sport of rowing come alive all the while setting the stage of what life was like in the 1930's. I love this book and would highly recommend to anyone who loves a great story of determination, hard work and overcoming amazing odds!!!

Booklist Review: *Starred Review* If Jesse Owens is rightfully the most famous American athlete of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, repudiating Adolf Hitler's notion of white supremacy by winning gold in four events, the gold-medal-winning effort by the eight-man rowing team from the University of Washington remains a remarkable story. It encompasses the convergence of transcendent British boatmaker George Pocock; the quiet yet deadly effective UW men's varsity coach, Al Ulbrickson; and an unlikely gaggle of young rowers who would shine as freshmen, then grow up together, a rough-and-tumble bunch, writes Brown, not very worldly, but earnest and used to hard work. Brown (Under a Flaming Sky, 2006) takes enough time to profile the principals in this story while using the 1936 games and Hitler's heavy financial and political investment in them to pull the narrative along. In doing so, he offers a vivid picture of the socioeconomic landscape of 1930s America (brutal), the relentlessly demanding effort required of an Olympic-level rower, the exquisite brainpower and materials that go into making a first-rate boat, and the wiles of a coach who somehow found a way to, first, beat archrival University of California, then conquer a national field of qualifiers, and finally, defeat the best rowing teams in the world. A book that informs as it inspires