Ms Simonsen Defend Challenge or Qualify Assignment Objectives

Ms. Simonsen Defend, Challenge, or Qualify Assignment Objectives: Students will perform research, select relevant sources, and extract needed information.

Research Tasks You have a topic. What are you supposed to do today? Find sources Take careful notes (without having to print) Stay organized You’re going to use this information to help you write an essay. Learn as much as you can about the topic now, so you don’t have to do more research when you’re supposed to be writing.

Sometimes research can be tricky. You may not find much on your first search, or you may not find good articles on the first few pages of a search return. Research Tips If you don’t find what you’re looking for Try using synonyms (similar words) or technical terms. Try to broaden or narrow your focus. EX: Sports instead of football Try using Boolean operators (and/or/not) and ctrl + f Try using “quotation marks” to search exact words in exact order.

Using Sources Databases (digital collections of information) and search engines help you find great sources, but they aren’t sources in themselves. Sometimes students incorrectly list Google Scholar or Bing as a source when it just helped them find a source. We’re going to use the Gale databases on Utah’s Online Library. You need the username and password if you search from home, so take a bookmark. If you search from school, you won’t need the username and password. UOL contains links to many different academic databases. Databases are closed sources (caretakers have to add information), so they contain trustworthy, scholarly info.

Using Gale Reference Collection on Utah’s Online Library (onlinelibrary. uen. org) Gale has a lot of great databases you can use, depending upon your topic. There are databases specifically for reference materials (like textbooks and encyclopedias), current issues in society, argumentative topics, newspapers/magazines, and science-related subjects. Go to onlinelibrary. uen. org and click on Gale Reference Collection to get started.

Powersearch We’ll begin with an overall search of Gale before we start to look at the specialized databases. Click on the Powersearch feature above the eight databases.

You have to choose key words from the prompt that will help you with your searching. You can’t just type in “the ill treatment of those outside the ‘norm’” and expect to get a lot of relevant information that you can connect to Frankenstein. How would we say the Frankenstein monster is outside of the norm? Keyword Search Similarly, it will be hard to find information just on “advancement of technology” or “unchecked science experimentation. ” What types of technologies are we working on that are similar to what happens in Frankenstein? What kinds of science experiments worry people today? Search for those topics. Your keywords should be less than five words. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, try using synonyms or some similar words. For instance “overly ambitious” or overzealous instead of irrational ambition. Type in your keywords into the Powersearch tab and hit search to take a look at your results. Searching takes time and patience.

Browse Feature The Browse Topics tabs on the databases that end with the words “in Context” have a lot of great resources that are presorted for you. Open the “Student Resources in Context” database and click the “Browse Topics” tab on the left side. Hit CTRL and the F key at the same time to open up a search. Type in Frankenstein to see what pops up.

Rapid fire open up “Global Issues in Context, ” “Opposing Viewpoints in Context, ” “Student Resources in Context, ” and “Science in Context. ” (Only choose “Science in Context” if you’re researching technology or science experimentation. ) More Issues Click on the Browse Issues tab in the upper left corner of the page. Under the CTRL and F searches, try to type in your keywords and see if you can find any other issues that will help you. These minidatabases have a lot of great information on them if you perform searches, too. For instance, it might be easier to find stuff about ambition under “Opposing Viewpoints in Context” than it is using the Powersearch. Go through them all and see what you can find.

Infotrac Student, Virtual Reference Library, and Newsstand Infotrac Newsstand, Gale Virtual Reference Library, and Infotrac Student Edition do not have the “Browse Issues” feature, but Newsstand has a lot of newspaper articles, Virtual Reference Library can be helpful for specific topics (such as isolation), and Student Edition has a lot of magazine articles that you might find helpful. If you can’t find anything using the other databases, try using these resources.

Don’t copy and paste the url. They aren’t fixed, and a lot of students have lost their articles because they don’t save them or write down any extra information. Saving Articles If you find an article you want to keep, log in to Microsoft 365 at the top of your Gale database using your school e-mail and password. From there, click Download from the article tools and save it to Onedrive. It will save the article, any highlights you have done, and the Correct MLA citation in a folder on Onedrive that is the same name as the database you are using. So if you are using Biographies in Context, your article will be in your Office 365 Onedrive account under a folder titled Biographies in Context.

Academic Search Engines The information on Refseek. com tends to be scholarly and extremely useful. Watch out for paid ads before it lists its search hits. Google Scholar can also put you in touch with academic information about your subject.

Good Luck! I hope this tutorial will help you find a lot of great information in a short amount of time! It’s trustworthy, and the sources include MLA citations for your Works Cited page. If you need any help, come see me in the library.