1

Finding Sources Gathering Information for Essays which Require Research: Background Finding Sources--explanation Primary & Secondary Sources On-Line (Card) Catalog Magazines & Journals Indexes & Abstracts Newspaper Indexes Reference Books Library of Congress Subject Heading Index Books Internet Resources Knowledgeable People Interlibrary Loan Reference Librarian ________________________________________ Gathering Information for Essays which Require Research: Background Gathering sources is much more complex than it used to be. For starters, there are more resources available. Secondly, information can be gathered in a number of places. Your primary places for locating sources will be: The library Other computer sources (CDRoms, etc.) The internet/world wide web This section provides an overview of important concepts and techniques in gathering information for research essays. You should read this section before going to more specific information on types of sources, documentation, etc. and before trying the sample exercises. The library If you go to the library, you will find that the old card catalog, which only lists books, has been replaced by a computer in most libraries. If you are doing research on a fairly new topic, this will be fine. However, not all libraries have their entire collection on line. So, if you are looking for information on say, the Civil War, and think that some older sources might be useful to you, be sure to ask the librarian if the library still maintains their card catalog. If they do, you should check there as well as checking the computer. The computer in the library usually will have instructions attached to it. Most library systems allow you to search by title, author, or subject headings, and most are cross-referenced. If you know which books you want, or know a specific author who has written books about the field that you are researching, then go ahead and use the title or author categories in the computer. You also may find it very helpful to use the subject heading category, which will offer you more options for the books that might be useful to you in doing your research. The subject heading category allows you to put in key words that might lead to books in your interest area. Don't limit yourself, though, by putting in words that are too narrow or too broad. If your search

2 words are too narrow, you will not find many sources; on the other hand if they are too broad, you will not find the search useful either. Key words are words that relate to your topic but are not necessarily in your thesis statement (note that it will be most helpful if you have a clear idea about your topic before you begin this type of research, although research can also help to narrow your thesis). For example, if you are searching for information about women in the Civil War, it would be too broad to enter just "women" and "war." You would find too many sources this way. It might also be too narrow to enter the name of a specific woman--you probably need more historical context. Try key phrases such as "women and Civil War" or "girls and Civil War." You want to find as many books that might be helpful on the subject that you are searching, without providing yourself with so much information that you lose sight of your original topic. You will also discover that there is another great way to find books that might be helpful to you. As you find books on your topic listed in the computer, you can then track those books down on the shelf. After a few minutes of searching on the computer, you will start to see that certain books have call numbers (the number on the book's spine that tells its location in the library) that are similar. After you finish your work on the computer, ask a reference librarian, or follow the signs on the walls to locate the call numbers that correspond with your books. When you get to the section where your book is located, don't just look at that book. Look around, too. Sometimes you will find great resources that you were unaware of just by looking on the shelf. Because libraries are generally organized by topic, you can often find some real "gems" this way. Also check the index in the front or the back of the book (the one in the back is always more detailed, but not all books have one) to be sure that the information you are looking for is in the book. A book can have a great title, but no information. On the other hand, a book that doesn't seem to go along with what you are doing can turn out to have a lot of usable information. Books are generally a great resource--they often contain a lot of information gathered into one place, and they can give you a more thorough investigation of your topic. As you are reading a book, journal article, or newspaper article, you should keep the following questions in mind, which will help you understand how useful the book will be to you. 1. Is the book or article biased in a particular way? For instance, is the book or article written by a person who is a member of a particular religious group, or a particular environmental group, for example, which would "color" their interpretation? 2. Does the author agree or disagree with my thesis? 3. Is the information presented accurately, to the best of your knowledge? Is the author him/herself using valid sources? Internet/World Wide Web Research Internet research is another popular option these days. You can research from home if you have internet search capabilities, or you usually can research from the library. Most libraries have internet connections on at least a few computers, although sometimes you need to sign up for them in advance. Even if there doesn't seem to be much of a crowd around, be sure to sign up on the sheet so that you don't have someone come along and try to take your spot. Internet research can be very rewarding, but it also has its drawbacks. Many libraries have set their computers on a particular search engine, or a service that will conduct the research for you. If you don't find what you are looking for by using one search engine, switch to another (Google, Yahoo, etc... are all

3 good choices). Internet research can be time consuming. You will need to search much the way you would on the library database computers--simply type in key words or authors or titles, and see what the computer comes up with. Then you will have to read through the list of choices that you are given and see if any of them match what you think you are looking for. WARNING ABOUT INTERNET AND WORLD WIDE WEB RESEARCH: There are a lot of resources on the internet that are not going to be valuable to you. Part of your internet research will include evaluating the resources that you find. Personal web pages are NOT a good source to go by--they often have incorrect information on them and can be very misleading. Be sure that your internet information is from a recognized source such as the government, an agency that you are sure is a credible source (the Greenpeace web page, for example, or the web page for the National Institute of Health), or a credible news source (CBS, NBC, and ABC all have web pages). A rule of thumb when doing internet research: if you aren't sure whether or not the source is credible, DON'T USE IT!! One good source to help you determine the credibility of online information is available from UCLA: Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources. Check out the Content and Evaluation and Sources and Data sections. Do NOT use Wikipedia as your online resource. 6. Taking notes, paraphrasing, and quoting Taking notes is an important part of doing research. Be sure when you take notes that you write down the source that they are from. One way of keeping track is to make yourself a "master list"--a number list of all of the sources that you have. Then, as you are writing down notes, you can just write down the number of that source. A good place to write notes down is on note cards. This way you can take the note cards and organize them later according to the way you want to organize your paper. While taking notes, also be sure to write down the page number of the information. You will need this later on when you are writing your paper. What do I take notes on? Good question. You should take notes on ideas and concepts that you think are important to include in your paper. You also can include supporting examples that you think would be helpful to refer to. You should NOT write the words down exactly as they appear on the page, unless you are putting them in quotations. Otherwise, you might accidentally write them into your paper that way, and that would be plagiarism. Be sure to write down the page number that you are working from in case you want to refer back to it. Click here to learn more about Taking Notes. Using quotes, or What if I want the exact words? If you come across a passage in your reading and it seems to you that the author's language is more accurate, more touching, or more informative than you could create, then you should write that sentence down exactly as you see it, with quotation marks around the sentence(s). You must be very careful to record the page number that this information is from, because you will need to include it in your paper. Quotes should not be used terribly often--if your paper is nothing more than a series of quotes strung together. What about summarizing and paraphrasing? Summarizing and paraphrasing are similar to quoting in that you are recording the author's ideas. However, when you summarize or paraphrase, you record ideas as opposed to exact language; the language is yours. Once again, be sure to jot down the page number-you will need it later. Any time you summarize or paraphrase, you MUST acknowledge the source of your information. Not only is it a professional requirement, it is a way to avoid plagiarism.

4 Documentation Any time that you use information that is not what is considered "common knowledge," you must acknowledge your source. For example, when you paraphrase or quote, you need to indicate to your reader that you got the information from somewhere else. This scholarly practice allows your reader to follow up that source to get more information. You must create what is called a citation in order to acknowledge someone else's ideas. You use parentheses () in your text, and inside the parentheses you put the author's name and the page number (there are several different ways of doing this. You should look at your course guide carefully to determine which format you should be using). Two standard formats, MLA and APA, stand for the Modern Language Association, and the American Psychological Association. Evaluating Sources to Answer a Research Question You will want your research paper to be respected and credible. Therefore, after you identify sources relevant to your research, you need to determine whether they can help answer your research question. There are four questions to ask when evaluating sources: 1. How well does the source answer the research question? 2. Is the information provided by an expert? 3. Is the source valid? 4. Is there a variety of sources? How Well Does the Source Answer the Research Question? To determine whether printed or online published material provides appropriate information for you, review its table of contents, indexes, photographs, captions and diagrams, and read the first sentence of every paragraph, searching for words, names, concepts or images related to your research. Is the Information Provided by an Expert? To support your research's legitimacy, you will want your sources to be experts who have considerable experience and training in an area and whose informed opinion can substantiate (or differ with) your point of view. (Just because a person is associated with a situation or idea does not make him or her an expert; for example, if you are researching medical waste, any person who works in a hospital is not necessarily an expert.) Is the Source Valid? 1. Is the information presented objectively and without bias? (Do you accept a claim from the National Association of Tobacco Growers that nicotine is not an addictive drug?) 2. Do the authors let you know their sources of information? Be wary when "an informed source" is quoted without telling the reader who that source is. 3. Do the authors explain their research methods as well as results? 4. Is the research current, if the topic demands it? If you're writing a paper on nuclear waste disposal, a report written in 1952 is not valid. Is There a Variety of Sources? Identify the range of expert perspectives, conclusions, opinions and approaches to your topic so you don't promote or rely too heavily on one source or point of view. For example, if you are comparing the leadership styles of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, don't cite five books by Bruce Catton, or use six sources on Lee and only two on Grant.

7. Taking Notes First of all, make sure that you record all necessary and appropriate information: author, title, publisher, place of publication, volume, span of pages, date. It's probably easiest to keep this basic information about each sources on individual 3x5 or 4x6 notecards. This way when you come to creating the "Works Cited" or "References" at the end of your paper, you can easily alphabetize your cards to create the list. Also keep a running list of page numbers as you take notes, so you can identify the exact location of each piece of noted information. Remember, you will have to refer to these sources accurately, sometimes using page numbers within your paper and, depending on the type of source, using page numbers as part of your list of sources at the end of the paper. Many people recommend taking all your notes on notecards. The advantage of notecards is that if you write very specific notes, or only one idea on one side of the card, you can then spread them out on a table and rearrange them as you are structuring your paper. They're also small and neat and can help you stay organized. Some people find notecards too small and frustrating to work with when taking notes, and use a notebook instead. They leave plenty of space between notes and only write on one side of the page. Later, they either cut up their notes and arrange them as they would the cards, or they color code their notes to help them arrange information for sections or paragraphs of their paper. What to Put into Notes When you take notes, your job is not to write everything down, nor is it a good idea to give into the temptation of photocopying pages or articles. Note taking is the process of extracting only the information that answers your research question or supports your working thesis directly. Notes can be in one of three forms: summary, paraphrase, or direct quotation. (It's a good idea to come up with a system-- you might simply label each card or note "s" "p" or "q"--as a way of keeping track of the kind of notes you took from a source.) Also, a direct quotation reproduces the source's words and punctuation exactly, so you add quotation marks around the sentence(s) to show this. Remember it is essential to record the exact page numbers of the specific notes, since you will need them later for your documentation. Work carefully to make sure you have recorded the source of your notes, and the basic information you will need when citing your source, to save yourself a great deal of time and frustration--otherwise you will have to make extra trips to the library when writing your final draft. How to Use Idea Cards While doing your research you will be making connections and synthesizing what you are learning. Some people find it useful to make "idea cards" or notes in which they write out the ideas and perceptions they are developing about their topic. How to Work with Notes 1. After you take notes, re-read them. 2. Then re-organize them by putting similar information together. Working with your notes involves regrouping them by topic instead of by source. Re-group your notes by re-shuffling your index cards or by color-coding or using symbols to code notes in a notebook.

6 3. Review the topics of your newly-grouped notes. If the topics do not answer your research question or support your working thesis directly, you may need to do additional research or re-think your original research. 4. During this process you may find that you have taken notes that do not answer your research question or support your working thesis directly. Don't be afraid to throw them away. It may have struck you that you just read a lot of "re" words: re-read, re-organize, re-group, re-shuffle, rethink. That's right; working with your notes essentially means going back and reviewing how this "new" information fits with your own thoughts about the topic or issue of the research. Grouping your notes should enable you to outline the major sections and then the paragraph of your research paper. Working with Quotations Using Quotations in a Paper A research paper blends your own ideas and information from expert sources. It is NOT a series of direct quotations strung together. A common complaint of faculty is that students use too many direct quotes in their papers instead of formulating their own ideas about the paper topic and using quotes rather sparingly as one way to substantiate their point of view on the topic. Use summaries and paraphrases most often to support your own ideas. Use direct quotations only when the information is so well presented (or in the interest of clarity, emphasis, or accuracy), that you think the exact language of the source should be used. Remember that when you do choose to use direct quotations, you need to retain the exact wording, spelling, and punctuation of the original source. And remember, too, that just like when using a direct quotation, you must cite your source when summarizing or paraphrasing. How to Leave Out Part of a Quotation Yes, you can leave out words you deem unnecessary in a quotation, but you can't take out words that will change its meaning. For example, if the quotation is "This movie is wonderful drivel," you can't quote it as "This movie is wonderful . . ." and leave out the word "drivel," since it changes the meaning of the quotation. 1. Deleting Words at the Start of a Quotation - If you are deleting words at the beginning of a quotation, simply start the quotation at the appropriate place to show that words have been left out: The New York Times reports, however, that screening for cystic fibrosis is "quietly creeping into clinical practice" (Swerdlow 66). [MLA format] 2. Deleting Words in the Middle of a Quotation - To delete words in the middle of a quotation, show that words have been omitted by using ellipses, a series of three periods separated by spaces. For example, the whole quotation is this: "'Human improvement' is a fact of life, not because of the state eugenics committee, but because of consumer demand" (Kevlev 75). [MLA format] If you choose to leave out the middle phrases you could do it this way: "'Human improvement' is a fact of life . . . because of consumer demand" (Kevlev, 1994, 75). [APA format]

7 3. Deleting Words at the End of a Quotation - If you leave out words at the end of a quotation and the end of the quotation also coincides with the end of your sentence, place the ellipses at the end of your sentence: Today we have the "Republicans, who are more nationalist than socialist, and the Democrats, who are more socialist than nationalist . . . ." (Smith, 1995, 3). [APA format] If you leave out words at the end of a quotation and more of the sentence follows, then simply work the quotation into the structure of your sentence, without using ellipses: Today we have the "Republicans, who are more nationalist than socialist, and the Democrats, who are more socialist than nationalist," thus confirming the dilemma of modern U.S. politics (Smith, 1995, 3). [APA format] Adding Information to a Quotation You can add information to a quotation in order to define a word or phrase, to clarify the quotation's information, or to make a brief comment on the quotation's information. The information that you add always should be brief; reserve your major comments on the quotation's information to be placed after the quotation ends. Show any added information by placing that added information in square brackets within the quote. If your computer or typewriter does not have square bracket keys, then draw the brackets in. You can NOT substitute parentheses for brackets, since they carry a different meaning. (Parentheses indicate that the added information is part of the direct quotation itself and not your own.) For example: Holmes stated that "The chair on which the body was found was covered in a formerly yellow, now a brownish, blood-stained tabaret [upholstery with satin stripes]" (5). [MLA format] (In this case, you'd need to define "tabaret" for a general reading public.) Or: "He [William Dean Howells] was 'fierce to shut out' of his study the voices and faces of his family in 'pursuit of the end' which he 'sought gropingly, blindly and with very little hope but with an intense ambition, and a courage that gave way under no burden, before no obstacles'" (Kirk and Kirk xxxvi). [MLA format] (In this case, you'd need to clarify the person to whom the "he" refers.) Or: "Stephen Crane's experience as a journalist [as Berryman affirms] provided the impetus for his fiction" (Walcutt 22). [MLA format] (In this case, the writer provides a brief comment on the information to let the reader know that two major critics of Crane agree.) Long Quotations If you decide to use a quotation that is longer than four lines, it is not put in quotation marks but rather indented from the left. Once again remember that you will need to document or show the source of the quotations you use, so make sure that you have recorded all necessary information about the source.

Using a Quote within a Quote If you need to quote something that already includes a quotation in it, then place the regular "double" quotation marks at the beginning and the end of the complete quotation, and use special "single" quotation marks for the quote within the quote. It looks like this: "Blake disposes of Menroy's definition of realism, which he calls 'naturalism in disguise'" (Zwerbe 13). [MLA format] Writing Summaries and Paraphrases The ability to summarize and paraphrase is an essential academic skill. Summaries and paraphrasing help substantiate ideas in research papers without the need to quote every word from source material. A summary condenses the main ideas of all or part of a source in your own words. A paraphrase is a rewording of a particular point from a source. You can be accused of plagiarism if you change only a few words from the original source and use that as your summary or paraphrase. Be careful to use your own words and sentences. To write a summary or paraphrase: Read and reread your source until you understand exactly what it is saying. Put the source and your notes aside and record what you recall that is relevant to your project. Rewrite this information in your own words and sentences so it becomes a coherent part of your paper written in your own style. Make clear which are your own ideas and words and which come from another source. Any ideas and wording which are not your own need to be documented as to their source.