Research Methodology :- [ Unit 1 - Research and Writing]
Topic :- Conducting the Research
Welcome readers! This blog is written in response to the thinking activity assigned by Vaidehi Ma'am from Department of English ,MKBU. In this blog I will reflect my understanding on the topic titled 'Conducting the Research' in the Paper of Research Methodology.
Conducting Research is an inquiry based process that involves : identifying a question to explore something you are motivated to learn. Gathering information from a variety of online and offline sources. Analyzing and evaluating information. Drawing conclusions and making recommendations and sharing the knowledge gained with others.
Click here to access the book titled 'MLA Handbook for writers of Research Papers.' - 7th edition. This book gives a detailed notes about Research Methodology and also contains so many chapters.
□ What is Conducting Research :-
Conducting research is like being a detective for information. You ask questions, gather clues (data), and analyze them to find answers. It's a methodical process to learn new things or solve problems by exploring and understanding different aspects of a topic. It is a systematic and disciplined process of inquiry aimed at acquiring knowledge, solving problems, or gaining deeper understanding of a particular subject. It involves a series of organized steps that researches follow to explore and investigate a topic thoroughly.
Conducting Research requires critical thinking, attention to detail, and adherence to ethical principles to ensure the reliability and validity of the findings. It is an essential process across various fields, contributing to the advancement of knowledge and the improvement of practices in academia, industry, and society at large.
In the main topic of Conducting Research, there are Nine Sub points / topics in that. They are as below.
Conducting Research
● The Modern Academic Library
● Library Research Sources
● The Central Information System
● Reference works
● The Online Catalog of Library Holdings
● Full - Text Databases
● Other Library Resources and services
● Web Sources
● Summing Up
1.1 :- The Modern Academic Library :-
The library will generally be your most reliable guide as you conduct research for papers that draw on the published work of experts. Librarians evaluate resources for authority and quality before acquiring
them for use in research. You should therefore become thoroughly acquainted with the libraries available to you and take full advantage of the resources and services they provide on-site and over the Internet.
□ Resources and Services :-
The modern academic library typically offers resources in print and electronic forms and in other nonprint media (e.g., films, sound recordings), as well as computer services, such as word processing, high- quality printers, and access to the Internet. Whereas some important resources are available only in the library building (e.g., most books and other publications solely in print form, microfilm materials, special collections), your library probably provides a number of electronic resources, such as bibliographic and full-text databases, that are accessible not only through computer terminals in the library but also from outside through the library's Web site.
□ Orientation and Instruction :-
Most academic libraries have programs of orientation and instruction to meet the needs of all students, from beginning researchers to graduate students. Ask about introductory pamphlets or handbooks and guided tours as well as lectures and classes on using the library and on related subjects like developing research strategies and searching the World Wide Web. The library's Web site likely contains scheduling information on such classes as well as descriptions of available resources and services. The site may also offer online tutorials.
□ Professional Reference Librarians :-
Nearly all public and academic libraries have desks staffed by professional reference librarians who can tell you about available instructional programs and help you locate sources. Specialist librarians often prepare and distribute, in print and electronic forms, research guides to specific fields of study. Consulting a librarian at key points in your research may save you considerable time and effort. Librarians may be available in person or by telephone, e-mail, or instant messaging.
1.2 :- Library Research Sources :-
Touring or reading about your library will reveal the many important sources of information it makes available to researchers. Information sources fall into four general categories.
● Electronic Sources :-
Your library probably offers reference works in electronic form and full - text databases and may also recommend useful web sites. Your library likely subscribes to journals available in electronic form.
● Books and similar Publications :-
The library typically houses a vast number of books as well as similar publications such as pamphlets and perhaps dissertations. Books are essential sources for many projects, and some instructors require that students use books-in addition to articles, Web sites, and other materials during research. One can usually borrow most books from the library. A common exception is the library's collection of reference works in print. Although reference works usually cannot be borrowed, many important ones are likely available to you through the library's Web site.
● Articles and other publications in Print Periodicals :-
The library gives access to numerous articles and similar writings (e.g., reviews, editorials) published in print periodicals such as scholarly journals, newspapers, and magazines.
● Additional Sources :-
Most libraries provide nonprint sources such as sound recordings and video recordings and possibly also unpublished writings (e.g., manuscripts or private letters in special collections).
1.3 :- The Central Information System :-
Most academic libraries provide an online central information system to guide students and faculty members to research sources. The system ordinarily includes ;
A. The library's Catalog of Holdings ( books, periodicals, electronic sources, audiovisual materials, etc.
B. Bibliographic databases, such as the MLA International Bibliography and science Direct.
C. Other electronic resources, including reference works, full text databases to which the library subscribes and recommended web sites to which the library provides links.
D. Other Information about the Library, such as its location, hours and policies.
1.4 :- Reference Works :-
A useful way to begin a research project is to consult relevant reference works. Some reference works, like indexes and bibliographies, categorize research materials by subject and provide data that permit you to locate sources-author, title, date of publication, and so forth.Other reference works, like encyclopedias, dictionaries, and biographical sources, give basic information about subjects. This section provides a brief introduction to the kinds of general and specialized reference works you should know about. Your library probably has reference works in print and electronic forms.
● Print :- Print works may be located in a reference room. General reference books, like dictionaries, encyclopedias, biographical sources, yearbooks, atlases, and gazetteers, may all be shelved together in one place, while specialized reference books may be grouped ac-
cording to subject area-biology, business, literature, psychology, and so forth. The volumes of reference works published annually indexes, bibliographies, and abstracts collections-are likely lined up in chronological order.
● Electronic :- Reference works available as electronic databases are usually online or on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. Searching and drawing material from the library's databases can be done in the library building and probably from outside as well, over the Internet. In some electronic environments, you can search several kinds of works in a single query. Reference Universe, for example, allows
you to search the indexes of more than ten thousand reference works.
The electronic medium has obvious advantages for the researcher, such as currency, broad coverage, ease of downloading and printing, hypertextuallinks to other works, and sophisticated search capabilities. But do not ignore printed reference works, for many valuable works exist only in print. Sometimes when a work is available in both media the electronic version is partial, and so the print version provides better coverage. For example, some longstanding reference publications, such as indexes, bibliographies, and encyclopedias, have parts available in print that have not been converted for electronic publication. You will want to consider the scope of coverage in electronic versions you consult.
A. Reference works that provide Data about Research Materials :-
□ Indexes and Bibliographies are list of publications usually classified by subject. Depending on the scope of coverage, they may guide you to material in newspapers, magazines, as well as to writings in books and on websites.
1. The New York Times Index
2. Reader's Guide to periodical Literature Index
3. The Philosopher's Index
4. Bibliographic Index
● The New York Times Index covers all articles published in the newspaper. For a research paper on the military draft in New York City
during the Civil War, you can use this index to locate relevant articles in 1860-65.
● Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature indexes the contents of widely circulated periodicals. If you are writing about American women's fashion during the 1970s, you can identify magazine articles on the topic here.
● Most subject areas and scholarly disciplines have their own specialized bibliographies. You can use The Philosopher's Index, for example, to create a list of scholarly-journal articles about Immanuel Kant's ethical theory published since 1995.
● Bibliographic Index cites bibliographies that are published as books or pamphlets, as parts of books, or in periodicals.
□ Collections of abstracts present summaries of journal articles and other literature. Abstracts help you screen out works irrelevant to your research, so that you look for and read only the most promising sources.
1. Newspaper Abstracts
2. Periodical Abstracts
3. Biological Abstracts
4. Dissertation Abstracts
● Newspaper Abstracts covers over fifty major newspapers in the United states.
● Periodical Abstracts treats a wide range of English-language academic journals and news magazines. It also indexes transcripts from
about eighty television and radio programs that present news and other information.
● An entry in Book Review Digest provides an abstract of a book, excerpts of reviews it received in major publications, and bibliographic data for the reviews. This resource can help you understand how a book was evaluated when it was first published.
● Many collections of abstracts focus on a specific discipline or subject. Biological Abstracts covers over 3,700 journals in the life sciences from around the world. The index goes back to publications from 1926, illuminating the history of biology as well as contemporary research.
● Summaries of doctoral dissertations are available in Dissertation Abstracts International.
□ Guides to Research seek to direct you to the most important sources of information and scholarship in the area you are researching. Unlike indexes, bibliographies, and collections of abstracts, which tend to strive for comprehensiveness and objectivity in presenting information, guides to research are usually selective and evaluative.
□ Some research guides cover entire fields, such as Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing ofReference Sources in English Literary Studies and Philosophy: A Guide to the Reference Literature.
□ Some guides to research are devoted to specific subjects within fields (e.g., Reference Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction).
To learn of any guides that might be useful to your project, consult the latest edition of the American Library Association's Guide to Reference Books, your instructor, or a librarian.
B. Reference Works that give basic Information about subjects :-
□ Dictionaries provide Information, usually concise definitions, about Words or topics.
● Among the most authoritative dictionaries for English words are Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language and, especially for the history of a word's meanings and usages, The Oxford English Dictionary.
● More concise English-language dictionaries often recommended for student writers are The American Heritage College Dictionary, Merriam- Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, and The New Oxford American Dictionary.
● A thesaurus lists groups of synonyms-words with similar meanings. It is useful for writers who wish to find the most precise word for a particular context or to vary their choice of words. Examples are Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus and Roget's International Thesaurus.
● Major fields of study have specialized dictionaries, such as Black's Law Dictionary, Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology.
● Dual-language dictionaries typically present words in one language followed by translations of those words into another language for instance, The New World Spanish-English, English-Spanish Dictionary (also titled EI New World diccionario espaiiol-ingles, ingles espatioh. Some language dictionaries in specialized fields are in a multilingual format, such as Elsevier's Dictionary of Environment
in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.
□ Encyclopedias give introductory information about subjects.
● Popular general encyclopedias are The Columbia Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia Americana, and The Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.
● Specialized encyclopedias include The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
□ Biographical sources describes the lives of prominent persons.
● Information on living persons is collected in such works as Current Biography, The International Who's Who, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the Arab World.
● Sources for persons no longer living are often organized by nation, as in American National Biography (for the United States), Dictionary of Canadian Biography, and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (for Great Britain).
Yearbooks present facts about years in the past. Examples are The Americana Annual, Britannica Book of the Year, and The Europe Yearbook. Most are updates to encyclopedias, published between editions. Almanacs are annual publications containing data, especially statistics, about many subjects. Examples are The World Almanac and Book of Facts and The World Factbook Atlases are collections of maps. Along with the many useful atlases published as print volumes, prominent atlases available on the Web
include The National Atlas of the United States of America, the official atlas of the United States; Google Earth, which covers the entire globe; and Perry-Castaiieda Library Map Collection, at the University of Texas, Austin, a historical collection.
Gazetteers provide geographic information. Examples are The Columbia Gazetteer of the World and Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary.
□ Statistical resources Provide numerical or quantitative facts.
● The United States government regularly publishes collections of statistics. For example, Statistical Abstract of the United States is issued by the Bureau of the Census. American Fact Finder, produced by the same bureau, is a source for population, housing, economic, and geographic data. Fed Stats, an interagency publication, gives access to statistics and other information produced by more than one
hundred United States government agencies. The Congressional Information Service provides statistical information from federal, state, business, professional, and international sources.
● Intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations are also good sources of quantitative information. For instance, the United Nations publishes the Statistical Yearbook and the Demographic Yearbook.
C. Searching a Reference Database :-
Every field of study has standard reference works. One such work is the MLA International Bibliography, which lists studies in the fields of language and literature. This work is published in electronic and print formats.
TWO VERSIONS :-
1 . ELECTRONIC :- The MLA International Bibliography is published in online and CD-ROM versions, which contain all citations published in annual volumes of the bibliography from 1926 to the present. Therefore, while an annual print volume of the MLA International
Bibliography lists around 67,000 titles, the electronic versions offer information on more than 2,000,000 titles. Using these electronic editions, which are available from different vendors, involves searching techniques common to most databases. The standard ways of searching this database and similar ones are by author, title, and subject. Each vendor's system has help screens to guide you through its software interface.
2. PRINT :- The printed library edition of this work is published annually in two clothbound books. The first contains listings in five areas :- literature in English, literature in other languages, linguistics, general literature and related topics, and folklore. The second book provides a subject index to the first.
TYPES OF SEARCHES OF THE ELECTRONIC VERSION :-
1. Author searches
2. Title searches
3. Subject searches
4. Expanded searches
□ Boolean searches :- The electronic MLA International Bibliography also permits searching according to Boolean logic-named after the nineteenth-century British mathematician and logician George
Boole. In this kind of searching, you customize your search request with the operators and, or, and not. For example, you can use the Boolean operator or to expand your search. The follow-
ing search expression will furnish more titles than either "Arthur Conan Doyle" or "Sherlock Holmes" by itself would :
Arthur Conan Doyle or Sherlock Holmes
If you want to perform narrower searches, the Boolean operators not and and can limit the field of titles accessed. If you are interested in finding studies on, say, versions of the story of Othello other than Shakespeare's, enter the following :
Othello not Shakespeare
Or if you would like to identify studies that compare Shakespeare's play with Otello, Verdi's operatic adaptation of it, keying the following rather than just "Othello" will result in a shorter, more focused list of sources :
Othello and Otello
● Other advanced searches :- The MLA International Bibliography in its electronic versions offers other ways to restrict your search. It allows you to retrieve titles from a single publication source for instance, articles on Othello that have appeared in Shakespeare Quarterly over the last several decades. The database also allows you to limit your search according to language of publication (e.g., Japanese, Spanish), publication type [e.g., book, journal article), and publication year. You can obtain a list; for example, of books on Goethe's Faust that were written in German and published in 2000 or later.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION PROVIDED
The database allows you to print out and download bibliographic information. It also gives you a choice of how to view, print, or download data. The display style varies among the interfaces through which the MLA International Bibliography is offered. The expanded record allows you to click on the subject descriptors to find additional items on the same topics. In some cases, you can follow a link from a bibliographic record directly to a PDF or Web version of the work.
□ The Online Catalog of Library Holdings :-
An important part of a library's central information system is the online catalog of holdings (e.g., electronic publications, books, serials, audio visual materials). There is no standard system for online catalogs. Systems differ, for example, in how users access information and in what appears on the screen. All systems, however, permit searching.
A. Searching an Online Catalog :-
When using an online catalog, you can locate a work in a number of ways. The most common are by author, by title, and by subject.
● Author searches :- If you enter the author's full name-whether a personal name (e.g., Maxine Hong Kingston) or a corporate name (e.g., United States Central Intelligence Agency)-the screen displays a list of all the works the library has by that author. If you know only an author's last name (e.g, Kingston), you can obtain a list of all authors with that last name.
● Title searches :- Entering the title produces a list of all works the library has with that title. The online catalog contains not only book titles but also titles of other works in the system, including journals (e.g., Psychology and Marketing), databases (e.g., Anthropological
Literature), and book series. If you enter the name of a book series, such as "Approaches to Teaching World Literature" or "Loeb Classical Library," you will receive a list of all book titles in the series. If you know only the beginning of a title-for example, only Advertising, Competition, instead of Advertising, Competition, and Public Policy :A Simulation Study-you can enter what you know, and the screen will display all titles that begin with those words.
● Subject heading searches :- If you have no author or title in mind, you can enter a subject heading to produce a list of works about the subject. Most academic libraries exclusively use the subject headings that appear in the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Many headings have more specific subheadings. For example, you can enter "Mass media and the environment" and receive a list of all
works assigned that general subject heading, or you can obtain a more specialized list by entering one of the following :
□ Mass media and the environment-Great Britain
□ Mass media and the environment-India
□ Mass media and the environment-Latin America
□ Mass media and the environment-United States
● Call number searches :- If you know a work's call number, the designation by which the work is shelved in the library, you can enter it and receive bibliographic information about the work. For example, if you enter "PA817.B431992," you will learn that it applies to the book An Introduction to New Testament Greek, written by Frank Beetham and published in London by Bristol Classical Press in 1992.
● Keyword searches :- An online catalog also helps you to initiate more sophisticated searches. A keyword search looks for individual words regardless of their location in a name, title, or subject heading. You can, for example, call up a list of all works that contain "competition" anywhere in their titles, such as Information Agreements, Competition, and Efficiency Conglomerate Mergers and Market Competition Competition and Human Behavior. A subject heading search using the keyword "competition" will produce the titles of all works whose subject descriptions include the word, such as Europe versus America? Contradictions of Imperialism, one of whose subject headings is "Competition, International," or Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System, one of whose subject headings is "Competition-Moral and ethical aspects."
● Boolean searches :- Online catalogs also typically permit searching according to Boolean logic-that is, using the operators and, or, and not. For instance, suppose you are interested in studies on the relation between nutrition and cancer. A search using "nutrition" alone or "cancer" alone would yield a list of all works having anything to do with the subject of each search, and you would have to pick out the items dealing with the two subjects together. In contrast, a Boolean search using "nutrition and cancer" excludes all works not about both subjects. Likewise, if you want to see which authors besides Goethe wrote about the Faust theme, you can enter "Faust not Goethe." In addition to narrowing lists of titles, Boolean searching is useful for expanding them. For example, if you wish to research solar heating, you might enter "solar or sun and heating," which will produce more titles than would just "solar and heating."
● Other advanced searches :- Online catalogs allow you to limit your search in various ways. Youmay ask for titles published during a certain range of years (e.g., 2000 to the present) or titles located only in one specific part of your library (e.g., the main collection). You may be able, too, to limit your search to specific media (e.g., books, serials, electronic publications, archives, manuscripts, musical scores, films, video or sound recordings). This feature will permit you, say, to request a list of books that were published in Spanish between 1990 and 2000 about cave paintings in Spain, or it will let you find out if your library has any video recordings about mythology or the Civil War.
b. Bibliographic Information Provided :-
When you access a title, the screen shows something like the example in figure 4. The top lines of the screen image contain the author's name (Elaine Freedgood), the full title (The Ideas in Things: Fugitive Meaning in the Victorian Novel), and complete publication information (the book was published by the University of Chicago Press in Chicago in 2006). The following lines describe the physical characteristics of the book (it has 10 pages of front matter-material before the main text-and 196 pages of text and measures 23 centimeters in height); indicate that it contains a bibliography and an index; show the subject headings under which the book is cataloged; and give its international standard book numbers (ISBNs).
Then follow hyperlinks to an electronic version of the table of contents and to records on the borrowing status of copies in the main collection and in a related collection. The call number of the book appears in the listings of the libraries' copies.
C. Information needed for Research and Writing :-
For the purposes of researching and writing your paper, you normally will not use most of the information that appears in the catalog entry. You need to know the call number, of course, to locate the work in the library and, for your paper's works-cited list, you also need to know the author, title, and full publication information. Following is the entry in the works - cited list for the title given above :
Freedgood, Elaine. The Ideas in Things: Fugitive Meaning in the Victorian Novel.
Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2006. Print.
Transcribe this information carefully. Online catalog systems typically give the option of printing out or downloading the bibliographic data displayed on the screen. This feature saves you the effort of copying the information and eliminates the possibility of transcription errors. You should, of course, verify the information you derive from the catalog against the source itself; errors sometimes occur during cataloging.
d. Call numbers :- The call numbers in your library probably follow one of two systems of classification: the Library of Congress system or the Dewey decimal system. Learning your library's system will not only help you to find works and know their contents from their call numbers but also guide you to sections of the library in which to browse.
● The Library of Congress system divides books into twenty major groups :
A General works
B Philosophy, psychology, and religion
C Auxiliary sciences of history
D World history and history of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia,
New Zealand, etc.
E-F History of the Americas
G Geography, anthropology, recreation
H Social sciences
J Political science
K Law
L Education
M Music and books on music
N Fine arts
P Language and literature
Q Science
R Medicine
S Agriculture
T Technology
U Military science
V Naval science
Z Bibliography, library science, and information resources
(general)
● The Dewey decimal system classifies books under ten major headings :
000 Computers, information, and general reference
100 Philosophy and psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Science
600 Technology
700 Arts and recreation
800 Literature
900 History and geography
e. Location of Library Materials :- The library catalog normally indicates not only the call number for a title but also the section in which to find the work, whether in the main collection or in a different location. It may also indicate if a title is checked out, missing, at the bindery, or on order. Ask at the circulation desk to see if it is possible to recall a checked - out book or search for a missing book.
● Open shelves and closed stacks
● Sections for reserved works and reference works.
● Other sections
□ Full - Text Databases :- In today's academic world, libraries offer a treasure trove of databases, not just for finding sources but also for enjoying full texts. Here are some databases you might love, and how to use them :
Anthro Source. This resource collects the contents of over thirty scholarly journals published by the American Anthropological Association. For a paper on the methods for recording folklore in the 1930s, you can perform a keyword search ("folklore") of all articles in the database published during that decade. You can then read the articles that relate most closely to your topic. If an article you read cites a source not included in the collection, you may be able to follow a link from the citation into another full-text database in your library where you can retrieve it.
Astor. Over 700,000 images relating to art and architecture are available in this database for browsing and searching. If you are studying the architecture of Buddhist temples in Vietnam, you can use Astor to locate relevant images of temples and other works of art with a search by geographic area. You can also save images on disk for use as figures in your paper or in a class presentation.
Early English Books Online (EEBO). A digital collection of over 100,000 books, tracts, and pamphlets published in England between 1473 and 1700, EEBO [ Early English Books Online] allows users to view and search rare material that is fragile in its original state. A student in a music history course can look at early English ballads here, for example, and identify patterns of imagery in the lyrics.
EBSCO Your library may subscribe to a number of EBSCO's bibliographic databases as well as to its full-text databases, such as Academic Search Premier (articles from over 4,500 scholarly publications in all major disciplines), Business Source Premier (articles from over 2,000 scholarly business periodicals), Newspaper Source (articles from some 200 United States and international newspapers), and Masterfile Premier (articles from nearly 2,000 periodicals on a variety of subjects, including general science, business, and psychology). These databases are good resources for research papers covering current events.
Project Muse. You can view recent issues of nearly four hundred scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences in this collection. A listing in an online bibliography or in your library's catalog may provide a direct link to a journal or article here. If you are interested in learning about, for instance, the propagation of native species, you might read through several issues of Native Plants Journal.
By making a careful record of your research findings, you can save time and effort when you later prepare the list of works cited. Most databases allow you to print or download citation data as well as the full text of sources. Remember to record the date of access (day, month, and year).
□ Other Library Resources and Services
Besides knowing about the materials discussed above, one should become familiar with the library's other resources and services.
a. Microforms :- Libraries use microforms to store such materials as back copies of periodicals (newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals) and rare books. Microforms are usually kept in a special section of the library. To use them, you need a reader that magnifies them; a special photocopier can reproduce microform pages. Library staff members are usually on hand to assist researchers in locating microform materials and operating the readers and photocopiers.
b. Media Center :- Many libraries have a special section devoted to audio recordings (e.g. compact discs, audiotapes, long-playing records), video recordings (e.g., on VHS or DVD), and multimedia materials. These resources are generally kept in closed stacks and used only in the library, although there may be exceptions, such as for use in the classroom. Some materials may be available for listening or viewing on the Web, inside or outside the library.
C. Electronic and Other Resources :- Photocopying machines are typically located at various sites in the library, as are computer terminals that give access to the central catalog and other databases and to the Internet. Your school may also permit students to borrow laptop computers, with Internet connections, for use in the library. Some schools have computer centers in the library and in other locations on campus as well. Such centers provide, for student use, a variety of software applications for tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet analysis, database management, drawing, image processing, and drafting. Services might include high-quality printing
and image and text scanning. Some schools have facilities for photographic, audio, and video production.
d. Interlibrary Loans :- Most libraries have agreements for the exchange of research materials on a regional, statewide, national, or even international basis. If your library does not have the materials you need, ask whether it can borrow them from another library. If it can, ask your librarian for help in initiating an interlibrary loan. Finding the source in a nearby library rather than a faraway one will save considerable time. To discover which libraries own your title, you may search other library catalogs over the Internet or consult World Cat, which lists the holdings of over ten thousand libraries.
□ Web Sources :-
A. Range of Sources :- Through the World Wide Web, a researcher can read and transfer material from library catalogs and millions of other useful sites, created by professional organizations (e.g., American Chemical Society, American Philosophical Association), government agencies [e.g., Library of Congress, United States Census Bureau), commercial enterprises (e.g. publishers of encyclopedias, news organizations), educational entities (e.g., universities, libraries, academic departments, research centers, scholarly projects), and individual scholars. These sites provide access to historical papers, literary works, articles in periodicals (e.g., journals, magazines, newspapers), and audiovisual materials (e.g., photographs, paintings, sound and video recordings).
b. Using Recommended Sites :- Using the Web for research requires practice and training just as using a library does. Whenever possible, follow the guidance of an instructor, an academic department, or a librarian in selecting Internet sites for research. In addition to offering online databases, your library's Website may provide links to important Internet sources, which were likely selected after careful evaluation and consultation. A librarian might also be able to advise you about sites relevant to your research. Similarly, you may find recommended sites on Web pages for your academic departments, instructors, or courses.
C. Gateway Sites :- Your librarian or instructor might direct you to a "meta page" or "gateway" that provides links to other sites. Some editors of gateway sites are broadly inclusive, while others are highly selective. Examples of
such sites follow :
● Voice of the shuttle
● Crossroads
● Intute
d. Searching the Web :-
□ Search tools :- If you know at the outset the exact topic you wish to research, you can perform a keyword search, which produces a listing of sites containing the word or words you specify. To avoid long lists containing many irrelevant sites, be as specific as possible in your terms-thus, "human cloning" will yield a shorter, more unified list than "cloning" alone would. Most search tools offer instructions on how to phrase search requests for the best results. You can often use Boolean and
other operators to make searches precise.
□ Bookmarking and recording the URL :-
Whenever you discover what seems a useful document or site, be sure to record its address so that you can easily return to the source for further information or clarification. You can compile a record by using the bookmark feature in your browser, copying URLs and pasting them into a file in your word processor, or using research-management software or sites.
□ Recording the date of access :-
Always note the date or dates on which you consult a source. The date of access is important because the material could be revised after you visit the site. You will need the date of access for your working bibliography and your list of works cited.
□ Internet sources among other sources :-
Whereas many instructors encourage using Internet sources, few consider a search of the Web alone adequate research for most research papers. Instructors generally require that other materials, including print publications, be sought. Similarly, e-mail discussion lists and online forums are helpful for sharing ideas but are rarely deemed acceptable resources for research papers.
□ Summing Up :- Your school library is likely to be your most reliable guide when you conduct research. You should therefore become as familiar as possible with the library's electronic and print resources and its various services. Library resources include ;
electronic resources (e.g., online catalog of holdings, reference works, bibliographic and full-text databases) books and similar publications (e.g., pamphlets)
Print periodicals (e.g., journals, newspapers, magazines)
Additional sources (e.g., sound and video recordings).
Library services may include;
a media center
photocopying machines
access to computers
use of software applications, printers, scanning devices, and other hardware
interlibrary loans
Useful Web sources are
sites recommended by instructors and librarians
gateway sites.
References :-
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Modern Language Association of America, 2009.
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