doing outline, thesis and working & Bibliography for a research paper.

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Lecture Three: Step 3 - The Literature Search

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How does the formulation of the research topic help you in your research?
What are some strategies to help you discover a topic?
Why does one write up a preliminary thesis and outline?
How does a thesis differ from a research topic?

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A declaration
A statement that will control the paper’s direction
A sentence that will confine the paper’s content.
A thesis statement will propose a conclusion

The author will defend/ try to convince the reader/ argue the thesis statement in the paper.

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Keywords are words or phrases

Discrimination against young women in the classroom, known as ‘shortchanging” harms the women academically, socially and psychologically.

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Early intervention programs aimed at improving the literacy in children at risk of failure will lead to societal benefits.

early literacy beginning reading

programs intervention

at risk potential drop outs

benefits impact, advantages

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Be as specific as possible to describe the concepts in your thesis
Word endings

adolescents or adolescence

Variant spellings

behavior or behaviour

Avoid using words that have multiple meanings (homographs)

primary

present

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Step 3: The Literature search

Facts vs Opinions

Locating scholarly information

Types of sources

Primary vs secondary sources

Library’s Online Catalogue
Searching CLUES

Known item search

Keyword search

Boolean operators and Wildcards

Limits

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Select your topic

Develop a preliminary thesis

Conduct a literature search

Create a working bibliography

Evaluate sources

Write the final thesis

Prepare the paper & bibliography

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Sources

Library catalogue

Indexes & abstracts

Web sources

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Multi-stepped and lengthy phase of research process
Focus will be on the use of database-driven retrieval tools:

Library catalogues

Subject-specific, multi-disciplinary, and specialized databases

Web-based search engines

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Research papers contain both facts and opinions taken from outside sources

Fact

Denotes something that exists

Can be verified or proven

Example: Number of children who are reading below grade level by the age of eight

Opinion

Is an idea about a fact or another opinion

Is an interpretation, a deduction, or a supposition

Example: Reasons why children are reading below grade level

A fact can be confirmed, whereas an opinion

can be explained or defended but not proven

definitively.

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Locating scholarly information

Primary vs Secondary Sources
Evaluating the information

Documentation

Currency

Review

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A document or object that was created as the original original

words of its creator/author

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS (excerpts or translations acceptable): Diaries, speeches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, official records, journals

CREATIVE WORKS: Poetry, drama, novels, music, art, photographs

RELICS OR ARTIFACTS: Pottery, furniture, clothing, buildings

Can quote more extensively from primary sources as they will have direct relevance to paper

http ://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/education/008-3010-e.html

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The Diary of Anne Frank - Experiences of a Jewish family during WWII
The Constitution of Canada - Canadian History
Pottery - Native American history
Watercolour painting of Montreal – Canadian Art History

A journal article reporting NEW research or findings

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Secondary sources

Works about someone or about their accomplishments or findings

Discusses the primary sources

An interpretation, evaluation or analysis

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/education/008-3010-e.html

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A journal/magazine article which interprets or reviews previous findings
A textbook
An analysis of poetry
A biography

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/education/008-3010-e.html

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“Doing research is all about trust. If you trust the person who created a secondary source, then there isn't a problem about using it. However, if you don't trust that person, if you think their version is a exaggerated or biased, or if you want to see the original evidence for yourself, then you have to go to the primary sources. “

From http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/education/008-3010-e.html

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Newspaper

Blog post

Census data

Weather report

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What is in CLUES?

Books

Journals (Periodicals)

Video

Music

Reserve items

Theses

Special collections

Eresources – ebooks & ejournals

Indexes & abstracts

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CLUES contains links to full-text purchased by the Library for Concordia students and faculty.

The first place to start your research!

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Preselected fields

Author

Title

Journal Title

Subject Heading

Call Number

Video Search

Advanced keyword

Author/Title

Government Document Number

ISBN/ISSN/Music Number

Other Number (OCLC)

Special Collections

Databases Search (Name & Subject)

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Known item search, use:

Search Options (with tips)

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Boolean Operators

Three operators that are used to logically combine keywords within a search statement

AND OR NOT

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Used between terms expressing dissimilar concepts

BOTH terms must appear in results

Example: Literacy AND elementary

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Literacy

(1426 recs)

Elementary

(4442 recs)

Total retrieved: 180 records

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Used between terms expressing a similar concept

EITHER term must appear in results

Example: Literacy OR Reading

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Literacy

(1426 recs)

Reading

(5686 recs)

Total retrieved: 6734 records

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Used to eliminate unwanted terms from search results

NOTed term(s) must not appear in the results

CLUES uses “AND NOT”

Example: Literacy NOT adult

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Literacy (1426 recs)

Adult

(2604 recs)

Total retrieved: 1237 records

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Using our keywords for the two main concepts…

Early literacy beginning reading

programs intervention

…we can design the following search statement:

(early literacy OR beginning reading) AND (programs OR intervention)

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Phrase Searching

Use quotes around two or more words

Terms will appear side by side in the order specified

Example: “food security”

Wildcards Words may be right-hand truncated using an asterisk ('*') in place of other characters. The '*' wildcard may also be embedded in a search string. You may use '?' to replace a single character anywhere within a word.

Examples : environment* polic*, wom?n

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Limiting fields

Those fields that contain information common to many records

Restrict search results by certain limits

Examples: Language, Date, Material type

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Arrange your concepts into a logically correct search statement:

(Inuit OR Eskimo) AND (Food or nutrition) AND Canad*

Use: Advanced Keyword

Look at the record to find your keywords – what colour are they?

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Arrange your keywords into a logically correct search statement:

Use: Advanced Keyword

Look at the record to find your keywords – what colour are they?

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Beginning the literature search

Form judgments about the type and quality of information that is to be retrieved

Scan material to learn about purpose, scope, relevant ideas etc.

Takes notes on discoveries

CLUES

Fields in CLUES records

Keyword searches on CLUES

Use of advanced commands in Keyword search

Next week: Searching Subject headings

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