© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. College Writing Skills, 6E and College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E John Langan Using the Library and the Internet Chapter Twenty-One Using the Library and the Internet

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 Using the Library and the Internet For most research topics, you need to master two basic tasks: books 1) finding books on your topic, and articles 2) finding articles on your topic.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 Using the Library and the Internet booksarticles Two main avenues for finding books and articles are library 1) the library and Internet 2) the Internet.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library library The heart of any library consists of the following: main desk the main desk book stacks the book stacks, and catalog the catalog of holdings.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library main desk The main desk is usually located in a central spot. checking out books information on the layout and services In addition to checking out books there, you can usually also find information on the layout and services of the library.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library stacks. Books, bound periodicals, and some other materials are kept in the library’s stacks. Some stacks are closed to students; in these cases, you need to fill out a form to request material.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library catalog The catalog of holdings is a list of all the materials available in the library. cards computerized. Formerly made up of cards in a set of drawers, catalogs today are usually computerized.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library book You can use the catalog to look up a book in one of three ways: author 1) by author, title 2) by title, or subject 3) by subject.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library catalog entry Here is a sample catalog entry : Author: Hersch, Patricia. Title: A tribe apart : a journey into the heart of American adolescence Edition: 1st ed. Description: 391 p. ; 25 cm. Published: New York : Fawcett Columbine, LC Subjects: Teenagers --United States. Location: GIBBSBORO Call Number: HQ796.H Circulation Data: Overdue as of 05/31/2000Hersch, Patricia.Teenagers --United States.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library subject If you are researching a topic, you should do a subject search, which can provide books a list of books on a given topic, related topics related topics, and more limited topics more limited topics, if you need help narrowing yours.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library periodical articles periodicals indexes To locate periodical articles on your topic, you need to search periodicals indexes such as the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. CD- ROMcomputerized database Most of these are now available on CD- ROM or computerized database.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library periodicals index: Here is a sample entry in a periodicals index: Diet Cancer and Diet G. Cowley. il Newsweek N 30 ‘98 subject title author periodical page numbers “illustrated” date

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library book subject As with a book search, if you are researching a topic, you should use the indexes to do a subject search first.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library periodicals indexes article authortitle You can also use the periodicals indexes to look up a specific article by author or by title.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Library Once you have located the book(s) and periodical(s) you need, you can proceed to the stacks (or request the materials).

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Internet Internet network The Internet is a giant network that connects computers at tens of thousands of institutions around the world. modem Internet service provider If you have a modem and a subscription to an Internet service provider, you have vast amounts of information literally at your fingertips.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Internet libraries catalogs databases periodicals indexes Your libraries -- school and/or public -- might well be online, in which case their catalogs and possibly computerized databases (including periodicals indexes ) might be available online.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Internet research libraries If not, many large research libraries, public and private, offer limited access to their catalogs and databases. Try these: (Columbia University) (Columbia University) (Library of Congress) (Library of Congress) (New York Public Library) (New York Public Library)

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Internet Major online booksellers such as are easy to search and offer information on a vast number of books, both in- and out-of-print.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Internet research a topic by subject Just as in the case of library catalogs and indexes, the Internet also allows you to research a topic by subject. Search directories, which organize websites by categories, can be invaluable in such searches. One of the best known is

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Internet Search engines Search engines ( Yahoo! [ AltaVista [ ], and many others) will find websites that relate to your topic. “quotation marks” + plus- and - minus-signs “hits” The key to useful searches is the search terms you use. Use “quotation marks” and + plus- and - minus-signs to limit the number of “hits” your search yields.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Internet “Robert Lee” +Robert Lee -“Robert E. Lee” For example, if you want to know something about someone named “Robert Lee” (not the U.S. President), you might type in +Robert Lee -“Robert E. Lee” This would eliminate many of the sites that discuss the President.

© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.College Writing Skills/ College Writing Skills with Readings, 6E Chapter 21 The Internet Unlike traditional publishing, the Internet has virtually no safeguards in place to keep dishonest and/or incompetent people from publishing their work. WARNING : EVALUATE WARNING : You must take extra care to EVALUATE web- sites you intend to use for research.