English 101: Library Instruction
Fall 2006
Instructor: Dr. Horan
Librarian: Dana DeFebbo
| Research Basics | Biographical Essays | Journal Articles |
| Books | Primary Sources | Internet Sources |
| Evaluating Your Sources | Citing Your Sources |
When starting your research it is important that you have an idea of what you are looking for, otherwise you will spend a lot of wasted time with little to show for it. So before you start searching you need to have a strategy.
1. Define what you are looking for.
This can be either in a statement or question format. Use your thesis statement or question to help you.
2. Identify keywords from your statement or question.
3. Think of synonyms and related terms for the keywords you have identified.
Biography Resource Center and Marquis Who’s Who - Biography Resource Center incorporates simple search functionality with an exhaustive database. It contains more than 400,000 biographies on nearly 315,000 people.
Choose the “start of last name” option when searching and search by the last name, first name of the Killer Angels figure you have chosen. When the results show, pay attention to the birth and death date of the person to make sure you are choosing the correct man.
Note: If you have chosen a topic or an event rather than a person, a biographical essay may or may not be relevant to your assignment. For instance, if you choose Pickett’s charge as your event, then Pickett’s biographical essay would be relevant.
To find scholarly journal articles, you will use a journal database. You can access these from anywhere in the world through our homepage. Many of them are full text, however some may require interlibrary loan, or using microfiche, microfilm or a bound paper journal.
To find books on your topic, search the Library catalog. Enter in your keywords using AND in between your keywords and quotations marks around phrases.
Example: Gettysburg AND "Pickett's Charge"
Primary sources are sources that are from the time of the event. Primary source material include newspaper accounts, letters or correspondences, and journals or diaries. Use the following databases to find primary source materials:
The American Civil War: Letters & Diaries
Accessible Archives
19th Century Masterfile
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Early American Newspapers
The first rule of internet sources for ANY academic research paper: Wikipedia is NOT and acceptable source.
Searching the Internet
Searching the internet is similar to searching a periodical database or the library catalog. You will use keywords and phrases to find the things you need. When using an Internet search engine such as Google, take advantage of Advanced Search options. Limiting the domain of the
As a general rule most anything you find from a periodical database will be suitable for you to use when writing a research paper. However, you should still evaluate each source you find in order to insure your topic is well researched and well presented.
Ask yourselves the following questions when evaluating your sources:
- Authority: Who put this site on the web? What credentials do they have? Are they an expert in the field you are researching?
- Purpose: What is its purpose? Why is it there? What audience are they trying to reach?
- Currency: Is it up-to-date? When was it published? When was it last updated?
- Coverage: Does it cover the topic thoroughly?
- Accuracy: Are sources documented? Are the sources credible?
Click here to download the Evaluating a Website for Research Guide that I handed out in class. Use the point system in this guide to determine if the website you found is an appropriate source to use for your assigement.
Giving credit to the authors and sources that you used to write your research paper is one of the most important steps in writing and presenting a college level research paper. If you do not properly cite your sources you are committing PLAGIARISM. Plagiarism is considered stealing and hence is a violation of the Honor Code. Ignorance is not an excuse.
Fortunately, we have some really great resources for you to use so you do not accidentally steal others thoughts and ideas.
Each discipline (major) has a certain way they like sources cited, so pay attention to the format your instructor prefers that you use. For this class and most (if not all) English classes, MLA (Modern Language Association) Style is the appropriate citation format.
Other citation formats include APA (American Psychological Association) ASA (American Sociological Association), Chicago Manual style, Turabian and IEEE (engineering).
Citation Resources
- Daniel Library Citing Sources Research Guide is a great compilation of style guides available for you to use. They are all online resources that are available to you at any time. The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University is a good place to check your citations. A link to this can be found on the Citing Sources Research Guide.
- Some periodical databases also provide you with citations for your articles.
- You may use a citation generator such as Citation Machine to create your citations.
WARNING: Always double check any citation that you did not create yourself. Generally speaking the citation generator and the citations created from the periodical databases are 75-90% correct. You MUST verify with the resources on the Citing Sources Research Guide to make sure that your citation is 100% correct.
Created by Dana M. DeFebbo
Reference and Instruction Librarian
The Citadel
10/23/06
Contact me at: dana.defebbo@citadel.edu