Jul 20, 2008

Finding Sources--explanation

Primary & Secondary Sources
Magazines & Journals
Indexes & Abstracts
Newspaper Indexes
Reference Books
Library of Congress Subject Heading Index
Books
Internet Resources
Knowledgeable People

Gathering Information for Essays which Require Research: Background

Key words are words that relate to your topic but are not necessarily in your thesis statement

Books are generally a great resource--they often contain a lot of information gathered into one place, and they can give you a more thorough investigation of your topic. As you are reading a book, journal article, or newspaper article, you should keep the following questions in mind, which will help you understand how useful the book will be to you.

1. Is the book or article biased in a particular way?

2. Does the author agree or disagree with my thesis?

3. Is the information presented accurately, to the best of your knowledge? Is the author him/herself using valid sources?

Periodicals
Internet/World Wide Web Research
A rule of thumb when doing internet research: if you aren't sure whether or not the source is credible, DON'T USE IT!!
Taking notes, paraphrasing, and quoting
Taking notes is an important part of doing research. Be sure when you take notes that you write down the source that they are from!

While taking notes, also be sure to write down the page number of the information. You will need this later on when you are writing your paper.

What do I take notes on?
Good question. You should take notes on ideas and concepts that you think are important to include in your paper.

You also can include supporting examples that you think would be helpful to refer to. You should NOT write the words down exactly as they appear on the page, unless you are putting them in quotation

you might accidentally write them into your paper that way, and that would be plagiarism.

Be sure to write down the page number that you are working from in case you want to refer back to it.

Using quotes, or What if I want the exact words?
If you come across a passage in your reading and it seems to you that the author's language is more accurate, more touching, or more informative than you could create, then you should write that sentence down exactly as you see it, with quotation marks around the sentence(s). You must be very careful to record the page number that this information is from, because you will need to include it in your paper.
Quotes should not be used terribly often--if your paper is nothing more than a series of quotes strung together (and yes, we have all written those!)

What about summarizing and paraphrasing?
Summarizing and paraphrasing are similar to quoting in that you are recording the author's ideas. Once again, be sure to jot down the page number--you will need it later. Any time you summarize or paraphrase, you MUST acknowledge the source of your information. Not only is it a professional requirement, it is a way to avoid plagiarism.

Documentation
Any time that you use information that is not what is considered "common knowledge," you must acknowledge your source. For example, when you paraphrase or quote, you need to indicate to your reader that you got the information from somewhere else. This scholarly practice allows your reader to follow up that source to get more information.

You must create what is called a citation in order to acknowledge someone else's ideas. You use parentheses () in your text, and inside the parentheses you put the author's name and the page number

Finding Sources
Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary sources are original, first-hand documents such as creative works, research studies, diaries and letters, or interviews you conduct.

Secondary sources are comments about primary sources such as analyses of creative work or original research, or historical interpretations of diaries and letters.

You can use a combination of primary and secondary sources to answer your research question, Exercise 6:

Magazines and Journals

Magazines are written for the general public, so they contain articles that do not present a subject in depth.

Journals are written by and for professionals in various fields and will provide you with in-depth, specific information.


Indexes & Abstracts

An index lists magazine or journal articles by subject.

An abstract is like an index with a brief description of the article's content added.
Newspaper Indexes
The most commonly used index to newspaper articles is the New York Times Index, organized alphabetically by subject.
Reference Books

There are many general reference books that may be useful to your research in a variety of ways.
1. General Encyclopedias (Britannica, Americana, etc.)
2. Specialized Encyclopedias (e.g., music or medical terms)
3. Facts on File, Statistical Abstracts
4. Other reference books

Library of Congress subject Heading Index

The Library of Congress provides an indexing system; most academic libraries index their books using Library of Congress subject headings. The Library of Congress publishes a Subject Heading Index listing all of the subject headings that they use.

Books


Internet Resources

The Internet can link you up with individuals who might have expertise on the topic you are researching. You can find these people by joining electronic discussion groups (newsgroups) or maillists.

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