1 / 16

Pol 101w: introduction to politics and government – Library research and resources

Pol 101w: introduction to politics and government – Library research and resources. For Brian Thomas Spring 2014. Agenda. Develop a research strategy Find appropriate resources Use advanced search techniques Evaluate sources Help!!. Develop a Research Strategy.

chinara
Download Presentation

Pol 101w: introduction to politics and government – Library research and resources

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Pol 101w: introduction to politics and government – Library research and resources For Brian Thomas Spring 2014

  2. Agenda • Develop a research strategy • Find appropriate resources • Use advanced search techniques • Evaluate sources • Help!!

  3. Develop a Research Strategy • Write down your topic • Break your topic into its components • Brainstorm synonyms for the words you’re using • These will become your keywords that you use to search databases

  4. Sample Topic • How does globalization affect the rights of women in developing countries?

  5. Exploring Library Resources • Library Search? Fast Search? Catalogue? • Which one should you use? • Explore the Political Science Library Research Guide

  6. Popular v. scholarly Journals • How do you know whether a resource is scholarly (academic) or popular?

  7. Popular Journals • Goals are to entertain the general public … and to sell! • Photographs and ads • Attention-grabbing headlines • Relatively short articles and opinion pieces • Nobibliographies • Authors may be anonymous • Examples: magazines, newspaper articles, etc.

  8. Scholarly Journals • Goals are to share ideas and research findings with other experts in the field • Peer-reviewed • Author credentials listed • Usually lengthy, in-depth • Abstracts, footnotes and/or bibliographies • Examples: journal articles, theses/dissertations, etc.

  9. Find Journal Articles • Recommended databases: PAIS International, Political Science Complete, Columbia International Affairs Online, International Political Science Abstracts (e-journal) • Limit your search to peer-reviewed or academic journals • Do not limit to full-text – It will omit relevant articles that are available in full-text from other SFU databases

  10. Political Science Complete

  11. Advanced Searching • Use quotation marks to search a phrase • “emerging economies” • Use truncation • global* = global, globalization, globalisation, globalizing • Use Boolean operators: OR, AND • Women OR Gender OR Feminism • Use to broaden your search and retrieve more search results • Women AND Globalization • Use to narrow your search and retrieve fewer search results

  12. Sources from the Open Web • Advantages? Disadvantages? • Web publishing • Commercial websites • Advocacy websites • News and opinion pieces • Personal websites and blogs • Scholarly research articles

  13. Evaluating sources • Authority: Who is the author? What are the author’s credentials? • Content: Is the information factual? Is it suitable for your topic? • Scope: Who is the intended audience? • Currency: How recently was the resource published or last updated? • Objectivity: Is the information consistent with other scholarly sources? Is there evidence of bias? Are the author’s sources clearly cited? Can they be verified?

  14. Cite your sources • Choose a citation style (e.g. APA) • Cite your sources in two places: in the body of your paper (in-text citations) and at the end of your paper (References) • Cite when you directly quote from a source and when you paraphrase • The purpose of citing your sources is: • to identify other people's ideas and arguments used within your essay • to inform the reader of your paper where to look to find the same sources

  15. Manage Your Sources • RefWorks • A web-based bibliography and citation database manager • Available to all current SFU faculty, staff, students and alumni • Stores citation data & formats output • Facilitates cooperative bibliography building

  16. Help! • Ask anyone at the Ask Us Desk in all three campus library branches • Use our Ask a Librarianservices http://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/ask-us/ • Contact me: Jenna Walsh jmwalsh@sfu.ca • Class? Due Date? • Where have you already searched? • How have you already searched? • Have you found anything close to what you need?

More Related