DueRead: Good Reasons, Chapter 2Publish: Sidebar for definition article Meeting PlaceWe will meet this week in the reference section of the main library. Please bring your three-ring binder and The Ready Reference Handbook. |
January 29-February 2, 2001We return to the main library this week to start tracking down sources of information about your subjects. By now, I should have assigned you to a group. Please sit with your groupmates in all of our future class meetings so that you can work together to conduct research, write, and revise.You will have most of Tuesday's class to conduct research on your own and with your group. On Thursday, a librarian will take you beyond basic searches to show you some useful sites and strategies for conducting Internet research. You will have a chance to apply what you have learned about finding sources by compiling your sidebar, which you must post on your online portfolio no later than 8 a.m. this Friday. Remember to photocopy your sources for this sidebar, as well as all of your other assignments, and to place your photocopies in your research notebook. |
ObjectivesBy the time you finish this you unit, you should:
Terms
ResourcesThe following Internet and print sources can help you with the concepts covered in this unit:
Be Your Best: Internet Structure provides an overview of the Internet. Look Smart (www.looksmart.com) features links organized by category. Miningco (www.miningco.com) features links chosen by experts. The Ready Reference Handbook features a chapter called "The Research Project" with useful tips on finding sources. Sampson-Livermore Library, UNCP's main library, has hundreds of thousands of books, magazines, scholarly journals, and other items. Who Where? (www.whowhere.com) allows you to find the e-mail and Web site addresses of people who have registered with Who Where?.
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Finding SourcesCollege professors share a lot of information with their students through lectures and reading assignments, but they also expect students to find information on their own. In fact, learning to gather information effectively should be one of your major goals while in college. After all, once you know how to find information, you can make much more educated decisions about your career, politics, finances, and other aspects of your life and the world. Indeed, knowing how to conduct research is one way of extending your education beyond college. You can build a strong foundation now by learning how to find sources in a library and on the Internet.Libraries hold thousands or even millions of print sources: books, periodicals, government documents, and other materials that appear in hard-copy form. Despite the lure of the Internet, experienced researchers know that a good library actually can help them produce better products with less effort. Indeed, once you know your way around the library, you will find writing easier because you can find a lot of thorough, credible information on your subject. The best place to start your research in the library is the reference section, where you can find a variety of subject encyclopedias with useful overviews and definitions. Later, you can move on to monographs and periodicals. Monographs are books and other items that stand alone and do not appear on a regular basis. Periodicals appear periodically, perhaps once a month or four times a year, and generally contain relatively short articles on various subjects. Some of the best-known periodicals are magazines and scholarly journals. You can find both monographs and periodicals by using electronic databases such as BraveCat and EbscoHost. When using these databases, type in key words-that is, words related to your subject--and connect them with Boolean operators, words such as "and" and "or," to narrow or broaden your search. For example, if you want to find articles about the history of billiards in America, you might type "billiards and history and United States." Before you enter the library stacks, where the books are stored, make sure that you understand the Library of Congress cataloging system, which UNCP libraries and other college libraries use to organize their books and other materials. Under this system, each book has a unique call number, such as PS 2638 .P32, in which the first one or two letters indicate the general subject--in this case, American literature. Because libraries put books in alphabetical and numerical order, books about similar subjects generally appear together on the shelves. Thus, whenever you find a book on your subject, look to the left and right of it for other books that may be of use to you. Also, always remember to check a book's bibliography, which is a list of other books and articles on similar subjects. Use the library's online catalog or another database to find these sources, check their bibliographies, and so on. Finally, if you learn about a book or article not available in your library, consider ordering it through interlibrary loan, an inexpensive method of obtaining sources stored in other libraries. The Internet is an international network of computers connected by wires such as telephone lines. Because many people post information on the Internet in the form of World Wide Web sites, it can be a useful research tool. Nevertheless, because the information on the Internet tends to be less credible, less thorough, and somewhat harder to find, you generally should use the Internet only to complement your library research. You can find information on the Internet in four basic ways. First, if possible, try typing in a site's URL, or Web address, directly. If you don't know the address, try guessing. For example, you might guess that the URL for the University of North Carolina is www.uncp.edu, and you would be right. Second, try visiting a subject directory, such as www.looksmart.com, where you an look for subject headings and narrow them down until you find links to Web sites on your subject. A third approach is to use a search engine, a computer program that looks through information on the Web and gives you a list of sites relevant to your interests. When you use the Excite search engine, for example, you type one or more key words into a white box and click on "Search." The next screen to appear will feature links to Web pages related to these words. To visit one, click on one of the links and write down the URL for future reference. Finally, once you reach a Web site on your subject, click on its links, which probably will lead you to other Web sites related to your subject. Exercises
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