Hello, I was told, or read somewhere, that with a new garden, I could shred old black and white news-paper and spread it over my garden. I was then given the suggestion of topping the shredded news-paper off with a thick layer of raked leaves and a layer of black plastic, for the winter, and in the spring till the "composted" mixture of news-paper and leaves into the soil to help built it up a bit....is this true or am I collecting old papers for no reason???

That would be one of the best things for you garden...
The shredded newspapers would call just about every worm in your neighborhood to gather....

If I put the raked leaves, I would chop them up with my lawnmower, then they are more easily composted down into the soil/dirt better and quicker...
*** The more exposed edges on an item to compost, it composts/breaksdown faster***

For you Black Plastic, that would be good too cause when the sun comes up early in the spring, it would then warm up quicker, melt the snow faster and solarize the soil a bit when it heats up under the plastic...

For tilling that stuff/mixture into the soil..
I might even do it in the fall time..
that way, it gets into the soil, now, and has plenty of time to decompose...**
** Just so you know, when things are in the "Decomposting/decomposing" mode, they steal/rob nitrogen from the soil, so you want to make sure you have plenty of nitrogen available for the plant to grow, if the other stuff is rendering down... it'll rob it from the plant...

I hope you will keep us posted on how you do...
We'd love to hear of all of your trials and errors...