Library Research

 

ENG 106: Composition 2

Lesson 8: Library Research
Oct. 14-18, 2002

Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to do each of the following without consulting notes or other resources:

  • Find print sources in a library.
  • Use URLs, subject directories, and search engines to find Internet sources.
  • Distinguish between primary and secondary sources.
  • Define relevant terms.

Assignments

Its’ fall break.  Relax!  You don’t have any reading or writing assignments for Tuesday. 

Activities

Our class activities this week include the following:

 

Think Fast: Drawing on what you have learned in previous classes about library research, make a list of sources where you could find information on your topic. Use your dictionary to look up the term you are going to define.

Presentation: Library Research (Professor Canada and Ms. Saylor)

Cooperative Learning: Collaborate with a partner to find subject encyclopedias and other books on your topic.

Discussion: During this time, we will discuss the insights and questions that have emerged during our reading, “Think Fast” exercise, presentations, and cooperative learning. 

Think Again: Using what you have learned in this lesson and previous lessons, draw up a research plan for your definitional argument.   

Conferences: While the rest of you are working on the “Think Again” exercise, I will meet with some of you in one-on-one conferences.  During this time, I will review some of your writing, orally quiz you on lesson objectives, and field your questions.

Announcements: We will wrap up this lesson with announcements regarding upcoming lessons, as well as other relevant subjects.

Terms

Make sure you know the meaning and significance of each of the following terms:

  • bibliography
  • Boolean operators
  • database
  • interlibrary loan
  • keyword
  • library
  • Library of Congress call number
  • monograph
  • primary source
  • print source
  • secondary source
  • source
  • subject encyclopedia

Resources

You can find more information about the subject covered in this lesson by consulting the resource listed below:

Everything’s an Argument provides help with conducting library research.

Updated October 11, 2002
© Mark Canada, 2002
mark.canada@uncp.edu
 

Introduction

In our previous lessons, we have discussed using sources such as the ones you have read in your text book.  In this lesson, we will take a look at library research and discuss effective strategies for finding the sources you need.  Please meet in the reference section of Sampson-Livermore Library on both Tuesday and Thursday of this week.  Please bring your dictionary to class on Tuesday.

Discussion

Using a Library

College professors share a lot of information with their students through lectures and reading assignments, but they also expect students to find, evaluate, and use information on their own.  In fact, learning to gather information effectively should be one of your major goals while in college.  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.

 

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.

Primary Sources

What they are: Think of primary sources as collections of raw data requiring interpretation.  In many cases, they contain mainly factual material--that is physical descriptions, dates, locations, quantities, and other types of information that people generally agree is true.  It is a good idea to start your research by looking at primary sources so that you can develop your own ideas.  Here are a few kinds of primary sources:

  • Works of art--including novels, short stories, poems, plays, paintings, sculptures, films, symphonies, and songs--express authors' feelings and ideas.
  • Personal narratives, such as letters and diaries, contain factual information about people's lives.
  • Many forms of journalism, including newspaper stories and television broadcasts, report facts about events in politics, business, sports, and other fields.
  • Some government documents, such as statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, contain statistics on population, financial matters, education, and other subjects.

How to find them: Run searches on a library catalog such as Brave Cat or specialized databases such as News Bank.  For statistical data, a good place to start is the Statistical Abstract of the United States.  In some fields, such as psychology and linguistics, you can create your own primary sources by conducting surveys, interviews, or observations.  While most primary sources are still available only in print form, a vast amount of primary material is available on the Internet and can be found on World Wide Web sites such as those managed by the University of Virginia and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Secondary Sources

What they are: Secondary sources contain interpretations of raw data  The authors of secondary sources, often university professors and other scholars, analyze factual material and draw conclusions about causes, effects, and meanings.  Others may disagree with their conclusions and offer their own interpretations in separate secondary sources.  After you have begun to interpret primary sources, you can use the material in these secondary sources to qualify, support, and refine your interpretation.  Be careful, though.  Scholarly books and articles often contain very challenging language. Keep a dictionary and a subject encyclopedia at hand when you read them.  Here are a few kinds of secondary sources:

  • Subject encyclopedias are invaluable secondary sources, especially early in the research process, because they provide useful background information, are highly credible, and often contain brief bibliographies--lists of other useful sources on a particular subject.
  • Scholarly books, generally written by university professors who are experts in their fields, often provide very useful and thorough overviews of a particular subjects.  Start by reading the introduction and then skim the individual chapters for relevant information.  Finally, check the book's bibliography for other sources.
  • Scholarly journal articles, also written by experts, usually cover very specific topics.  Like popular magazines, scholarly journals appear periodically, but they contain information designed for experts, rather than the general public. 

How to find them:  One of the best places to start when looking for secondary sources is the library's reference section, where you can find thousands of subject encyclopedias.  To find scholarly books, run searches on a library catalog such as Brave Cat or research databases, which are computer resources listing thousands of books and articles in particular fields. Type in the name of a topic, title, author, or a key word. Several databases are available on the Sampson-Livermore Library Web site. If you wish to search a database when you are off campus, you may need a password. Call the library's reference desk (521-6265) for information about getting a password. You also can find scholarly books and articles by checking bibliographies.  Whenever you come across a book or article on your topic, check the end for a bibliography and copy down the citations for other books and articles on your topic. Use these citations to find the materials. In many cases, you will have to use interlibrary loan, a service through which you can order books and photocopies of articles from other libraries, often at no cost to you. If an item you need is not available at our library, ask a librarian about interlibrary loan. Once you understand the process, you can order materials by visiting the library's Web site and typing in the appropriate information. Because it usually takes about a week or two to receive an item through interlibrary loan, you should order these materials as soon as possible. 

Conclusion

Now that you know how to find print sources in a library, we will turn in our next lesson to the skill of doing research on the Internet.