Research & Writing (MLA Style)

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library.centennialcollege.ca Distance Access

2 component parts of your research proposal…  Statement of your research problem (“choose a research topic” - Assignment 2)  Write a literature review / bibliography with annotations (Assignment 3)

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Which of these two research questions is probably better? Make sure your research question is practical. That is: can you find publications on your topic?

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Annotated bibliography example of a citation + note McIvor, Sam D. “Aboriginal women’s rights as ‘existing rights’”. Canadian Woman Studies/Les Cahiers de la Femme 2.3 (1995): Print. This article discusses recent constitutional legislation as it affects the human rights of aboriginal women in Canada: the Constitution Act (1982), its amendment in 1983, and amendments to the Indian Act (1985). It also discusses the implications for aboriginal women of the Supreme Court of Canada’s interpretation of the Constitution Act in R. v. Sparrow (1991)

Annotated bibliography example of a citation + note McIvor, Sam D. “Aboriginal women’s rights as ‘existing rights’”. Canadian Woman Studies/Les Cahiers de la Femme 2.3 (1995): Print. This article discusses recent constitutional legislation as it affects the human rights of aboriginal women in Canada: the Constitution Act (1982), its amendment in 1983, and amendments to the Indian Act (1985).This legislation reverses prior laws that denied Indian status to aboriginal women who married non-aboriginal men. On the basis of the Supreme Court of Canada’s interpretation of the Constitution Act in R. v. Sparrow (1991), McIvor argues that the Act recognizes fundamental human rights & existing aboriginal rights, granting to aboriginal women full participation in the aboriginal right to self-government.

► Get background information – Internet, encyclopedias, books… ► Get research reports & tune into the issues and debates - electronic databases (‘e-resources’) for journal & newspaper articles, Internet (selected sites)…

Need to revise your topic? Once you have done some searching, you may find that you will need to revise your topic Possible Reasons:  You can’t find publications on your topic  Your topic is discussed, but not in the way you expected  Your topic is too general – you discover that it has too many aspects (‘sub-topics’) to handle in one essay  You see a lot of material on a related aspect that you find more interesting and/or more practical

Google Scholar – for academic journal articles on the Internet

Google Books – for e-books on the Internet

Personal contacts…

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About E-resources & journal articles… E-Resources (databases): Licensed electronic resources - many let you search tens of thousands of articles at one time Journals:  Published in issues regularly (weekly, monthly, etc.)  Each issue contains several articles (essays) by different authors

About databases & the Internet – what’s the difference…? Internet  Quality varies widely  Inherent commercial bias  Huge  Limited user search tools Databases (E-resources)  More academic info, more consistent reliable quality  Commercial free  Big  Precision tools for searching 29

You might be lucky?

Searching for articles on your topic

Sample record in a database – Note: FIELDS Manage your results… print, , save, etc …

Sample MLA style citation from Business Source Complete database (EBSCO Vendor)

Sample search for full text scholarly articles in a database…

OR Boolean operator that collects

AND Boolean operator that combines…

LIMIT tools – e.g. fields

LIMIT tools – e.g. Scholarly (peer reviewed journals)

45 More LIMIT tools available to you…

EXPANDER tools – e.g. thesaurus

EXPANDER tools – e.g. multiple database searching

EXPANDER tools – e.g. truncation *

Saving your searches…

Managing your results…

Go to Folder…

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Wolfgram Memorial Library, Widener University (Chester, Pennsylvania) – a 10-minute av program, Evaluate Web Pages

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Your essay normally includes 3 types of material… 1. Your ideas 2. Your summaries of others’ ideas and facts (especially important for your literature review) 3. Quotations from your sources (MLA Handbook, 2009)