Intro to Term paper research

1. USING THE LIBRARY
and the computer
An Introduction to Term Paper
Research

2. Two types of sources

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Periodicals--published from time to
time with changing content. Individual
pieces that appear in periodicals are
usually called articles
Non-periodical sources such as
books, websites, films etc.

3. Periodicals
Because periodicals will probably
be the most common type of
source used, we will discuss them
first.

4. Two formats for periodicals
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Print—traditional hard copy and/or microform
images of the print versions
Electronic – electronic versions of print
publications, publications designed for the
web, articles from print sources archived and
made available as part of database products
like Academic Search Premier, JSTOR etc.
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Pdfs (show original paging, photos etc)
Html provides text but does not retain paging and may
or may not have photos, graphics etc.

5. Types of Periodicals
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Local Newspapers
National Newspapers
Magazines
Journals

6. Local or Regional
Newspapers
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Local newspapers are focused on
serving a particular city or region.
Libraries will subscribe to their own
local newspapers, but usually not
others
Use Honolulu Star Advertiser index at
the state library to browse or search full
text of the local papers from 1996
Web searching will also bring up recent
local articles.

7. Local Newspapers
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Why use a local paper? Essential for a local
issue—will provide the most in-depth
coverage.
Local newspapers also feature editorials on
national or international issues or discuss an
issue as it impacts their community.
Newspaper source, and Regional Business
News are database services that provide
access to local/regional newspapers.

8. Accessing Local/regional
Newspaper databases.
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Go to Campus Pipeline.
Go to Databases
Click news and current events
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Newspaper Source Plus
Regional Business news (if business topic)

9. National Newspapers
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Offer significant coverage of national and
international news as well as local news
Ordered in print by most libraries--ours are
on 5th floor
Each a newspaper has its own website but
rather than search each newspaper’s
electronic archive individually you may prefer
to use a database that includes these
sources. National newspaper articles will also
come up in web searches

10. Identifying National
Newspaper articles

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We have the New York Times back to 1851
in its own database (use for historical topics
or more recent ones).
Academic Search Premier and Newspaper
Source Plus both include citations from the
New York Times and the Wall Street Journal
and full text articles from the Christian
Science Monitor, Washington Post and USA
Today.

11. Online News

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There are many online news sites, some of which
reprint the print version and others which exist only
online.
Virtually every newspaper has it own site.
Search engines offer headline news
Wire services 
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UPI http://www.upi.com/
Reuters http://www.reuters.com/
Seldom in-depth enough to be good sources for
research so I don’t recommend including them as
sources

12. Magazines

Magazines are periodical publications
intended for a popular audience and
usually published weekly or monthly
»
»
They may have a somewhat specialized audience
» Kala (accountants in Hawaii) Teacher (K-12
teachers)
Or They may have a broad audience
» Newsweek, Time, People

13. Magazines for Research?
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Most magazine articles will have limited
usefulness as sources for academic
research.
In newsmagazines, look for cover stories or
other in-depth features, as well as columns
and analysis.
Consider more intellectual magazines like
Commonweal, The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers,
Commentary, The Nation, National Review,
National Geographic, Scientific American,
The New Yorker. (These are all suitable for
WRI 1200 papers).

14. Finding Articles in Magazines
Academic Search Premier from
Campus Pipeline
 Military and Government Collection
from Campus Pipeline
 Topic Search from Campus Pipeline


15. Online magazines
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Many print magazines have web
versions which you can search by key
word. Rather than searching at the
individual sites use a general search
engine
Online only magazines
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Slate.com
Salon.com

16. Journals
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Journals are periodical publications aimed at
a scholarly or professional audience, often
published quarterly.
Journals are good academic sources—so
long as they are not too technical for you to
understand.
Note that you need to retrieve the full article,
not just the abstract. Some journals provide
only abstracts online.

17. Finding Articles in Journals
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From Campus Pipeline –Libraries—
Databases or at library terminals
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Academic Search Premier
JSTOR (all full text in pdf)
Project MUSE
Various indexes for specific subjects, see
list under Databases

18. Reading the journal articles
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Often the full text is available. If not, the database will
simply give information about the journal article but
you will still need to find a copy to read it.
Click on SFX to see if HPU has the full text available.
You may be able to get it online or may need to go
to the library for a print or microfiche copy
If we don’t have it, try UH. Go to the voyager catalog
(from Local Libraries) and search for the journal
name

19. Non-periodical sources
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Books
Websites
Government Documents
Television programs/videos
Interviews with experts

20. Finding Books
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Local Library Catalogs Include

HPU
Libraries
 Meader
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(downtown)
 Atherton (Hawaii Loa)
UH-Voyager (University of Hawaii)
HSPLS (Hawaii State Library)
 You can access all of these catalogs from
Campus Pipeline libraries page

21. Library of Congress Subject
Headings
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These are the headings under which books
are catalogued and which many indexes use
to organize articles.
One way to find out the appropriate LCSH for
your topic is to use the large red books that
list all the headings. These are found in the
topic assistance center in Meader Library or
in the reference section of any library. This
method involves trial and error browsing.

22. Library of Congress Subject
Headings
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Another method is to do a key word
search first and then see what subject
headings are given for useful sources.
Then do a subject search on those
headings.

23. Resources in the catalog
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Traditional books (find by call numbers)
3rd and 5th floor
Electronic books (click on link)
Audio-visual resources (some are
streamed from Films on Demand),
others require you to get them from the
5th floor

24. Considering books
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Is the book out of date?
Can you find a collection of essays by
different authors on your issue? (several
sources at once!)
By reading the introduction and the table of
contents you can figure out if a book is likely
to be useful and which parts to read first. Try
to avoid just reading a paragraph or so that
contains our key word

25. Bookstores

You may want to check a big bookstore
site like Amazon.com or Barnes and
Noble

These sites often provide brief reviews that
could help you determine if a book is what
you are looking for. Then you can try to
get the book from the library. Of course,
these sites will also sell some books of
dubious credibility—

26. Google books
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You can also search for and read
excerpts of books on Google books.
Since not all the pages will be part of a
preview—it’s best to try to see if you
can find an electronic or physical copy
of a useful book you find there.
Books.google.com

27. Using the Internet
 Use
Search Engines to find specific
pages on your topic.
Google, yahoo, ask.com etc. You
can use advance searching to
specify the domain (.edu or .gov for
example) or try Google scholar
from the Databases page.

28. Some Kinds of Websites
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Online periodicals have already been
discussed.
Advocacy sites are often good, but look for
sites on both sides to avoid getting biased
information. Often these sites have good
links
Organization sites don’t usually say much
but may provide links to good sources.
Scholarly project sites or directories can
provide in-depth sources

29. Some Kinds of Websites
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Beware of
Student projects.
 People’s personal websites.
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Blogs/associated content or similar
 Commercial sites.
 Term paper mills.
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Very poor quality if its free
Easy to get caught

30. Pitfalls of Web Research
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Search engines will return much
irrelevant data
Reliability of many sites is questionable
Can be difficult to find in-depth sources,
especially for academic topics
Transient or outdated sites

31. Government Documents
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Some can be found in library catalogs
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Loc.gov
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Example– collection of congressional hearings
Educational collections from the library of
congress
Congress.gov
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Useful when you are working with a legislative
issue or court case. You can get congressional
testimony and full texts of bills.

32. Television and Video
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Shows like 48 Hours,Nightline Nova
etc. may have trasncripts or episdoes
online
Check out the school’s video collection.
Go directly to Films on Demand which
searches segments as well as titles.

33. Interviews

You may want to try to arrange an inperson or telephone interview with
someone in the field you are
researching or someone who works
with an organization relevant to your
issue. Sometimes you can find and cite
published interviews.