Chapter 14 a Guide to Print, Electronic, and Other Sources

Chapter 14

a Guide to Print, Electronic, and Other Sources

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 14 | 2

Chapter overview

• Looks at the library as a resource

Other resources include:

• The World Wide Web, discussion boards, and live performances

• How to find information in indexes for books, magazines, or newspaper articles

• How to use search engines to find information on the Internet


Research begins with the library

Traditional print sources include:

• Online catalog

• Books and reference material

• Magazines and journals

• Newspapers


New electronic options

• Reference materials on CD-ROM (most are available online instead)

• Periodical databases such as Ebsco Host

• Full-text online journals, newspapers

• E-books

• Organizational Web sites, many with discussion boards


Three types of books

• Scholarly books—published by university presses. Specialized and addressed to academics.

• Trade books—published by commercial presses, generally for a broader audience

• Other books—published by religious and political presses, nonprofits and professional organizations


Five kinds of periodicals

• Scholarly journals with research by scholars (New England Journal of Medicine)

• Public affairs magazines (New Yorker)

• News magazines (Newsweek)

• Trade magazines (Advertising Age)

• Popular magazines (Rolling Stone)


The library catalog

• The catalog lists the materials (including books and periodicals) in the library. Records are organized by author, title, periodical,and subject.

• The old-fashioned card catalog is gone; catalogs are now online.


Periodical indexes

• Indexes list articles in magazines and journals; there are three types of indexes.

• Those listing the citations only, such as the Readers Guide to Periodicals

• Those with abstracts, a brief summary of the contents of the article (Historical Abstracts)

• Those with the full text, such as LEXIS/NEXIS or Ebsco Host


Two types of encyclopedias

• General: Includes traditional encyclopedias such as World Book, Microsoft Encarta,and Collier’s

• Specialized: Refers to encyclopedias that cover a narrow topic, such as literature, education, or philosophy.


Bibliographies

• Lists of articles or books on a narrow topic

• Annotated: Includes a paragraph summary of each source

• Textbook: Mentions the Bibliographic Index, which is published each year, providing a master list of bibliographies


Search engines

• See page 473 for a list of Web directories, or search tools.

• Search engines such as Google use key words.

• Others, such as WebCrawler, are Web directories, organized more like a library catalog.


More search engines

• Metasearch engines search multiple search engines at once.

• Ask Jeeves is a natural-language search engine.

• Hint: once you look these up, save them as favorites (if using Internet Explorer) or bookmarks (if using Netscape Navigator)


Using keywords

• See the box on page 473 for tips to finding the right keyword or keyword combination for search engines and electronic databases.


Government sources

• Lots of information is available from the government, including a summary of legislation on a weekly and quarterly basis.

• See the listing of government publications, on pages 506-507.

• http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html


Other sources

• Performances and events (seminars, lectures, plays, concerts)

• Museums

• Television, documentary films, radio, and other forms of media


Student Companion Website

• Go to the student side of the Web site for exercises, chapter overviews, and links to writing resources for this chapter:

http://college.hmco.com/pic/trimbur4e

Documents

Chapter 14 a Guide to Print, Electronic, and Other Sources