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So everyone has to start somewhere right? But when you're doing a research paper
eventually you're going to have to do some
research. (laughs)
So tell me if I'm right. When you start your research you go to a search
engine, you type in your question,
you start looking at the results, scroll through
maybe the first page of answers. If that works great. If it doesn't
then maybe you type in another question. Is that about right?
So when you do research for a college paper though,
your instructors are going to ask you for academic sources.
Now I know a lot of you probably use Google and some of you might even know
about Google Scholar.
But when you're looking for those academic sources it's not as easy as you
might think when you use Google or another search engine.
Why not? Well it's that academic thing.
You don't necessarily know what's
a reliable source. One of the main jobs of college a library is actually collecting
academic sources for students and instructors.
So if you can learn a couple of key strategies for using
online databases, databases like EBSCO Host
CQ Researcher, Literature Resource Center,
Opposing Viewpoints, those databases will actually really make a difference
in the quality of the research that you do and actually save you some time.
So how do we get to those sites? If you have a library card
or a Gavilan ID, all you have to do is go to
the library web page. Those databases that you can access
are full of thousands and thousands of the kinds of scholarly articles that
you need.
Hey Diego. What's up? Oh, hey Jessica. Not much.
What you working on? Oh, a research paper.
I figured I'd start with Wikipedia but it all looks you know...
Well, once your done sorting through all this,
we should go to the writing center. I was there working on my paper yesterday when
I overheard the librarian talking about finding sources.
Was it any good? Well, let's just say that before that workshop
I had trouble with Google. I turned in a paper one time but the professor said
that it didn't have any scholarly articles in it.
Yeah my professor wants scholarly articles too. And we can't use Wikipedia.
But I didn't know where else to start. Well, I'm pretty sure I came in during the middle
of that whole presentation.
So I'm sure there's a lot more to it. Want to go check it out with me?
Yeah. Lead the way.
See. This is exactly what you needed. Yeah. Here, let's take a seat.
So welcome to the second day of our research series which is evaluating sources.
Yesterday we looked at
finding sources. And we it looked at a few key strategies
for using databases that really makes a difference in your research.
After today we're moving on to reading and understanding
sources with a special emphasis on scholarly materials
especially empirical studies. There's a workshop on incorporating
research into your writing.
And we finish that series with using MLA and
APA citations - how to do those in your papers.
Does anybody have any questions before we get started?
Alright then. Let's let it roll.