MESAC Speech and Debate: From the EE guide

Websites to stretch your brain.  Browse, read, and let your mind wander.

• The RSA (Royal Society for the Arts) video channel -- animations, shorts, and talks
• Medium -- everyone's stories and ideas
• The Big Think - big idea hunters
• Big Ideas - a showcase of contemporary intellectual culture, from Canada
• The Conversation - a collaboration between editors and academics to provide informed news analysis and commentary that’s free to read and republish - in three editions:  Australia, the UK, and the US
• Edge.org - where some of the most sophisticated and complex minds in the world ask each other questions -- in particular, see Annual Questions (& Answers)
• Brainpickings
• CrashCourse videos by John Green and Hank Green
• Arts & Letters Daily - the best of book reviews, essays, and opinion each week
• Science Daily - the latest research news
• TED Talks - always a good bet....
• Open Culture - always letting us know about amazing free culture-related things to watch and read online
• The Globalist - a daily account of the key issues before the global community
• The PBS Idea Channel
• The School of Life - by Alain de Botton

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Of course you can use Google, Google Scholar and Google Books, but try these search engines as well.

Thanks to Katie Day at the United World College of South East Asia for generating much of this list.

No matter what note-taking technique you use, these are important guidelines to follow:

• Develop, modify, then stick to a strategy that works for you.
• Read for understanding.
• Paraphrase! (That's how you know you understand.)
• Be able to trace every single idea in your notes to its source.
• Write just enough - not so much that it's like reading the original all over again, not so little that you don't know what it means later.
• Abbreviations, symbols, and diagrams are great, as long as you'll remember what they mean.