Rachel Reid hosted a talk about research in the library, she talked about how we as students can use the library to our advantage within our research. but how to more easily break down the steps of research and how to obtain valid information.
Search engines like Google may contain many obstructions like the validity of the information and some websites it may lead you to may have a pay wall. The library search engine has no obstructions or pay walls and is viewed as academically sound. The library search engine also covers all of the campuses so there is a wide range of subjects available to the students and some parts of the library may not be available to the public as the library has many historical and out of print texts.
Books and encyclopaedias are a good starting point as they may give varied viewpoints and background information however journals are needed for more in depth investigation into your chosen topic. Journals are more current pieces of writing that can range for magazines to academic journals. Websites not only like OPAC but Oxford art on-line and Lexis library can help into finding what you need for your research.
When researching with a Librarys search engine it is best to start large overveiwing your topic with it's most basic of elements and then narrowing it down the the inclusion more keywords and the help of the search bar functions.
Looking at your found content brings evaluation of it's own, you must ask yourself what authority does this writer have in their feild and what bias may this writer have. We must also consider how up to date this writing is and if there has been any further developments into the field.
Next we were given a talk on how to properly reference these texts and the importance of referencing the work.
Referancing your research shows that you are understanding of what is outside of your own opinion and demonstrates that by giving credit to the original artist you are not plagiarizing work and allows the reader to verify your work and take up their own research.
Overall I found this talk informative and I hope to use the library to strengthen my research when I am doing both primary and secondary research into my fmp.
No comments:
Post a Comment