Writing 303 (Prof. Danis Banks)

February 23, 2012 2:10-3:10 P.M. CL204A

 

Library Research Orientation

(Presented by Prof. Di Su)

Practical issues

- Library Homepage: http://www.york.cuny.edu/library

- ID card barcode

            • Borrow books from York College Library

            • Order non-York books from other CUNY libraries including using CLICS

                        service

            • Request Interlibrary Loan items from non-CUNY libraries

            • Remote access to York databases.

- An alternative method of remote access: VPN (your York network account)

- Be patient when searching online. Internet speed may vary from time to time.

- Ask reference librarian at Reference Desk for assistance        

- Distinguish between popular and scholarly sources, e.g. academic journals vs. popular magazines. (See handout)

 

Search

- Sample topics (submitted by students):

            • Empowering women to overcome domestic violence
            • The lack of women in the mathematics field
            • The glass ceiling and its limits on women in business
            • The relationship between poverty and preventable diseases
            • Maternal drug use and its effects on infants
            • The relationship between pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and patients
            • Medically-approved marijuana (policy, politics)
            • The effect of gender roles on couples’ well-being
            • Government control over the Internet
            • Corruption in urine testing
            • Fabrication of paternity blood testing results
            • Behavioral problems in children (causes, treatments)
            • Peer-influence versus parental-influence on children: which is more dominant?

- CUNY+ Online Catalog: find books

            • URL <http://apps.appl.cuny.edu:83/F/?func=find-b-0&local_base=york>

            • Access points: Author, Title, Subject, Keyword, ISBN, Call number

            • Limits: specific library (within CUNY), format (print, electronic)

            • My Account

- Reference databases: find journal articles

            • URL<http://www.york.cuny.edu/library/reference-databases/full-text-databases>

• Choosing the right (relevant) databases based upon your research topic

• Finding Keywords: significant and important terms that reflect your research

            topic.

• A single, comprehensive database, e.g. Academic Search Complete/EBSCO

• A subject-specific database, e.g. PsycINFO

• EBSCO Multiple database: search through all EBSCO products

• EBSCO Integrated Search: search multiple databases including different vendors

            (non-EBSCO)

• Using “Find it” (SFX) to retrieve full-text articles from other databases

            • Boolean Logic Operators. And: narrows a search, e.g. women and army.

                        Or: increases the number of search results, e.g. women or female;

                        army or Military; computer or pc; adolescence or teenage.  Not:

                        filters out terms that you do not want included in your search, e.g.

                        computer not programming.

• Truncation/wildcard. child* to retrieve “child”, “children”, “childhood”, and

            “childish”; wom*n to retrieve “women” and “woman”

• Nesting in Boolean searching. Use (…) and (…) to group words by

            concept and

            to indicate the order of execution. Similar to math operation:

            1+1×2=3 but  (1+1)×2=4,

 e.g. (women or female) and (army or

                        military); children and violence and ((television or media) not

                        cartoon*)

            • Serials Solutions: find full-text e-Journals by title or subject. Search or

                        Browse: <http://dq9tx9bc6r.search.serialssolutions.com/>

- Google Scholar. Linked to York holdings

- Compiling citations (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.)

            • Manuals and handbooks are on Library Reserve.

            • Online samples: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/07/

            • Built-in citing function in databases, e.g. EBSCO Cite

• Online citation tools, e.g. RefWorks (Group code [case sensitive]:

            RWYorkC)

 

Created: 2/17/2012      Updated: 2/22/2012

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