Today’s Goals Continue generating ideas for research (By the end of this class period, every student should have at least one general research topic idea and one backup or secondary idea) Learn/practice how to use the FIU Library databases

Group Activity: Research Brainstorm Take a few minutes to finish up this activity from Friday In your unit 1 groups (make sure to write down your group number!) Select 10 (or two per student) possible research topics that you could use in this class. These can be ideas you mentioned on Monday, things from our class discussion, or even ideas we just discussed For each topic, identify one specific problem that needs to be resolved or a question that needs to be answered.

Journal Entry 2 Focus: Research Experience Reflection Take a few minutes to reflect on your experience with research in the past. Focus on academic research that you did in high school or college Do you have a preference for primary or secondary research? Do you find one more interesting than another? Why? How do you think you will use research in your current major or career of choice? Was there any particular research experience that stood out to you for being particularly interesting, difficult, or unique? Have you employed rhetorical reading, resistant reading, reading with the grain, and/or reading against the grain in the past? What do you anticipate this research experience will be like now that you have the freedom to research a topic of your choice?

Library Databases Advantages Disadvantages Easiest way to find/access peer reviewed sources Access to thousands of expensive academic journals for free The most credible databases/sources you will find anywhere (You will be required to use at least 3 peer reviewed sources from licensed databases for your Exploratory Narrative) The sheer number of sources can be overwhelming Many sources will have pedantic language that is hard to read or decipher Different databases will have different criteria and search protocols that will produce varied results and take individual time to learn to use

Recommended Library Databases Easy to use Academic Search Complete OmniFile Full Text Mega Academic OneFile LexisNexis: Academic ProQuest Specific topics/subject Use “Browse by Subject” in the left pane of the Research Sources page Recommended if you know of a particular journal you would like to access Comprehensive (but harder to use) JSTOR Project MUSE

Research Strategies Use Boolean operators: special words that affect search conditions. Do not use these except for their listed function and never as part of a sentence AND: only sources containing both words before and after it OR: sources containing either or both of the words it separates NOT: narrow search to show results with the first word that do not contain the second word

Research Strategies Eliminate function words or words that will appear in too many contexts, such as “the” or “a” or “first” When you want to find an exact phrase, enter it in quotation marks (Note: this will severely limit search results) Enter search terms in their order of importance rather than the order they will appear in the sentence (This prioritizes the first words for certain search engines)

Research Strategies Working Bibliography As you find sources, write down relevant information so you can find them again when necessary Make sure to indicate title, author, and in what search engine or location you found the article EW p. 183 has suggestions for additional material Quote Bank Read through each article highlighting and annotating information relevant to your argument. More information here is always better. You can eliminate extraneous material later. After you read each article, write a shortened version of any quote or important information in your quote bank After you have gone through all sources, read through your quote bank and see if you have sufficient material to make your argument

MLA Citations Best references: Purdue Online Writing Lab (recommended): Everyday Writer MLA Handbook MLA Citations Quick Reference PPT available on class website

Group Activity : Finding Sources In your unit 1 groups For each student’s topic, find one source from the library database that the student could use for their exploratory narrative. (There should be one source found for each person in the group) For each source, answer the following: 1. What is the title and who is the author of the source? 2. What is the main argument or thesis of the source? (The abstract may be helpful here) 3. What database did you find the source in? 4. How would you classify this source? (Would it be considered primary or secondary? Is its stance objective or subjective? )

Homework Find the first source you can use for your Exploratory Narrative. Bring a printed copy of the source to class on Friday Note: this should be a different source than you found in class today. However, feel free to save the source you found in class for later use with your Exploratory Narrative Read A&B p