Binder Events

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.

Mitch Kapor

Every year, Science Olympiad has a few events that allow the student to bring in a binder full of information for their test. Sometimes they can also bring a field identification guide. Sometimes they can even bring their computer. It is the ultimate open-book testing situation. The trick is to get everything you need in a format you can use and to have it done on time.

Share the Document

The Science Olympiad Alumni Wiki Page on Binders suggests starting by typing out your pages rather than writing out the material by hand. I suggest using Google docs. By having teammates share a document they can work together on one document and even leave notes for each other as it is developed.

Organize the Document

The rules to an event can be overwhelming at first glance, yet they are well organized in outline format. Use the outline found in the rules to organize the binder document. Copy the outline in a Title Page. Then Create sections under each heading for notes on the material specified. This can be a lot of information, don’t edit at this point. Get everything in there, absolutely everything.

Finding Information

One of the best places to find the information your team needs is available online, but this should not be your team’s only resource. Go to your favorite used bookstore and look for used college textbooks on your subject. I like McKay’s for this. Here are some great online places to start:

Science Olympiad’s National Website has yearly information on events, tournaments, rules, and informational sources.

The Science Olympiad Student Center has many resources including a informational wiki page and old tests from previous competitions.

Wikipedia has a lot of good general information. Facts should always be verified when using this open source online encyclopedia. In fact, the best resource of many wiki pages is the link section at the bottom of the pages. Searching through these links can not only verify information, but can lead to more information.

Adding Information to the Document

At this point, put everything in that you think you need. Everything. It is still not time to worry about limitations.

Plagiarism

Just a quick note on plagiarism I often get asked by students if they are allowed to copy information into these documents directly from online sources. Will just copy/paste work or will they need to cite all sources?

Sources are important because it not only gives credit for work where credit is due, but also because it tells the reader where they can verify the information. Yet these binders are essentially just notes for a test. As long as you are not publishing these notes as your own work, copy/paste is fine. While including the links to the information is a good idea because it will be useful to both your current team and future teams who may use these notes as a starting point for another season, there is no need to do so if you are not presenting the work.

Editing

Clean it up

After you have pulled all the information you think you need for the document. Go back and and consolidate repetitive information. Cut information that isn’t useful. Have graphics and photos, but eliminate those that are not useful.

Make your page limit

If your document has a set page limit you can scale it back to the required size by using these tips:

• Cut information you have memorized.
• Adjust your margins. Check to make sure your information will not get cut of by the printer, but there is a lot of space in the margins you can use if you rest the margins.
• Shrink the font. Again, make sure you can read it, but small print can open up a lot of space.
• Remove hard returns. I have had students run all of their notes together using colored fonts to help them break the text into topics rather than using spaces.
• Shrink images, but be careful that you can still make out the information that you need when it is printed.

Managing large binders

Having unlimited information can be a problem is you don’t know how to find information quickly in your giant document. Here are some tips:

• Number the pages and have a Table of Contents.
• Use section dividers. Colored card stock works well.
• Color the top right tips of the pages to indicate sections. This helps you to flip to a section quickly.
• Set your pages so that your information is confined and printed out to two pages if possible in one open layout. This helps when you are working on a test because you have all your information on the back of the left page and the front of the right side and laid open at the same time.
• Test your binder on practice tests. Practice tests can be found on The Science Olympiad Student Center. Save a couple for when you think your document is complete to use this way.

Printing

Printing the documents, hole punching, page covers, laminating, spotting those frustrating errors, can all be a part of this final step. My best advice for this is to do this early. I repeat: Do not wait too long to do this. If there are just a few pages, you can probably tackle this at home. However, if you are trying to tackle, let’s say an ornithology binder, where the list is long, the pages numerous, and the color images are vital to identification, you may want to find a company to do this for you. There are places that do this type of thing for you for a reasonable cost, but I have not personally used them. I’ll leave it to you to google great printing options for homeschool families and I’ll let you know what I think once I have used them myself.