Research Ready: A Homeschool Guide to Search, Sources & Citation

What if your child could find, evaluate, and cite any source — without you having to explain it every single time?

Every research assignment eventually hits the same wall: a student who found something on the internet, isn't sure if it's real, and doesn't know how to cite it anyway. Research Ready is a homeschool guide for ages 10–14 that works through that wall, one real skill at a time.

It isn't a worksheet pack. It's six units built around the actual decisions researchers make — how to build a search that finds something useful, how to check a source by leaving it instead of digging deeper into it, how to evaluate what you found against criteria that have names and real history behind them, how to match your source to your question, why citation exists at all, and how to make one anyone could follow.

Every tool in this guide is drawn from real, named research and methodology: the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy, lateral reading as developed at the Stanford History Education Group by Sam Wineburg and Mark McGrew, the CRAAP Test developed at California State University Chico, the Big6 Information Problem-Solving model, the scholarship-as-conversation framing from the ACRL Framework, and the four core citation elements common to every major style guide.

What's Inside

• Unit 1 – Search Like a Detective: Building and revising a strategic keyword search. (Scenario: The Report That Needed a Better Search)
• Unit 2 – Read Sideways, Not Down: Checking a source by leaving it, not digging deeper into it. (Scenario: The Website Nobody Had Heard Of)
• Unit 3 – Run the CRAAP Test: Evaluating one source in depth: currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, purpose. (Scenario: The Source That Looked Perfect)
• Unit 4 – Pick the Right Tool for the Question: Matching the source type to the actual question being asked. (Scenario: The Question a Search Engine Couldn't Answer)
• Unit 5 – Join the Conversation: Understanding why citation exists — not as a rule, but as honesty. (Scenario: The Idea That Wasn't Actually Hers)
• Unit 6 – Cite It So Anyone Can Find It: The four things every citation needs, in any style. (Scenario: The Bibliography Nobody Could Follow)

How to Use This Guide

One unit per week gives a natural six-week arc — or drop into any single unit when it's needed. Each unit includes a strategy guide, a real-life scenario, four reflection prompts, and considered model responses your child can use to honestly compare their thinking.

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