POL 101W: INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT – LIBRARY RESEARCH AND RESOURCES For Brian ThomasSpring 2014

Agenda  Develop a research strategy  Find appropriate resources  Use advanced search techniques  Evaluate sources  Help!!

Develop a Research Strategy  Write down your topic  Break your topic into its components  Brainstorm synonyms for the words you’re using  These will become your keywords that you use to search databases

Sample Topic  How does globalization affect the rights of women in developing countries?

Exploring Library Resources 5  Library Search? Fast Search? Catalogue?  Which one should you use?  Explore the Political Science Library Research GuidePolitical Science Library Research Guide

Popular v. scholarly Journals 6  How do you know whether a resource is scholarly (academic) or popular?

Popular Journals 7  Goals are to entertain the general public … and to sell!  Photographs and ads  Attention-grabbing headlines  Relatively short articles and opinion pieces  No bibliographies  Authors may be anonymous  Examples: magazines, newspaper articles, etc.

Scholarly Journals 8  Goals are to share ideas and research findings with other experts in the field  Peer-reviewed  Author credentials listed  Usually lengthy, in-depth  Abstracts, footnotes and/or bibliographies  Examples: journal articles, theses/dissertations, etc.

Find Journal Articles  Recommended databases: PAIS International, Political Science Complete, Columbia International Affairs Online, International Political Science Abstracts (e-journal)PAIS International Political Science CompleteColumbia International Affairs OnlineInternational Political Science Abstracts  Limit your search to peer-reviewed or academic journals  Do not limit to full-text – It will omit relevant articles that are available in full-text from other SFU databases

Political Science Complete

Advanced Searching  Use quotation marks to search a phrase  “emerging economies”  Use truncation  global* = global, globalization, globalisation, globalizing  Use Boolean operators: OR, AND  Women OR Gender OR Feminism o Use to broaden your search and retrieve more search results  Women AND Globalization o Use to narrow your search and retrieve fewer search results

Sources from the Open Web 12  Advantages? Disadvantages?  Web publishing  Commercial websites  Advocacy websites  News and opinion pieces  Personal websites and blogs  Scholarly research articles

Evaluating sources Authority: Who is the author? What are the author’s credentials? 2. Content: Is the information factual? Is it suitable for your topic? 3. Scope: Who is the intended audience? 4. Currency: How recently was the resource published or last updated? 5. Objectivity: Is the information consistent with other scholarly sources? Is there evidence of bias? Are the author’s sources clearly cited? Can they be verified?

Cite your sources 14  Choose a citation style (e.g. APA)  Cite your sources in two places: in the body of your paper (in-text citations) and at the end of your paper (References)  Cite when you directly quote from a source and when you paraphrase  The purpose of citing your sources is: o to identify other people's ideas and arguments used within your essay o to inform the reader of your paper where to look to find the same sources

Manage Your Sources  RefWorks RefWorks  A web-based bibliography and citation database manager  Available to all current SFU faculty, staff, students and alumni  Stores citation data & formats output  Facilitates cooperative bibliography building

Help!  Ask anyone at the Ask Us Desk in all three campus library branches  Use our Ask a Librarian services lp/ask-us/Ask a Librarian  Contact me: Jenna Walsh  Class? Due Date?  Where have you already searched?  How have you already searched?  Have you found anything close to what you need?