The Research Process
  
Holliston High School Library


 


Five Steps To Effective Library Research


 


              I.      Identify and Test Your Topic


            II.      Find Background Information


          III.      Find Resources


         IV.      Evaluate What You Find


           V.      Cite What You Find




 


 


 


I. HOW TO IDENTIFY AND TEST YOUR TOPIC


 


A. IDENTIFY A TOPIC.


 


State your topic idea as a question. For example, if you are interested in finding out about use of tobacco by high school students, you might pose the question, “What effect does use of tobacco have on the health of high school students?”


 


Identify the main concepts or keywords in your question. In this case they are tobacco, health, and students.


 


B. TEST YOUR TOPIC.


 


Test the main concepts or keywords in your topic by looking them up in the appropriate background sources or by using them as search terms in the subject area of Athena.


 


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II. HOW TO FIND BACKGROUND INFORMATION


 


Once you have identified the main topic and keywords for your research, find one or more sources of background information to read. These sources will provide you with information to help you to understand your selected topic. The most common background sources are print encyclopedias and dictionaries from the reference collection, their online equivalents.


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III. HOW TO FIND RESOURCES


 


·        Books


Use the Athena search tool in our School Library – searchable by title, author, or subject.


 


Search the Minuteman Library Network  @ http://www.mln.lib.ma.us/


The network is searchable by title, author, subject and keyword.


 


    

  • Magazine Articles


 


Search Infotrac, an online magazine index. It is located on the desktop of all networked computers @ the "Library Research Tools" icon. Go to Infotrac, and link to General Reference Gold. Enter your topic and view results.


 


Check out the online links from the High School Library Web Site @


http://www.teacherweb.com/MA/HollistonHighSchool/Library/


 


Make use of the many search engines available on the Internet .


 


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IV. HOW TO EVALUATE WHAT YOU FIND(YOUR RESOURCES)


 


    

  • Books – the Five “W”s – Who, What, Why, When, for  Whom


 


            Who wrote the book?


            What type of information can be in the book?


            Why was the book written?


            When was the book written?


            For whom was the book written? 


 


 


·        Web Sites/Pages


 


            Who wrote/created the site?


Can you contact him or her? 


            Why was the site created? What is the purpose?


            Is the information accurate?


How detailed is the information?


Are there any dead links on the page?


When was the site produced/updated?


 


 


 


 


         V.      HOW TO CITE WHAT YOU FIND


 


          Web Sites :


 


            Bibliographies: MLA Format


            http://www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/MLA/bibliographymla.htm


 


            A+ Rsearch & Writing Links(Internet Public Library)


            http://www.ipl.org/teen/aplus/links.htm


 


            Online Citation Styles(MLA, APA, Chicago, CBE, & Others)


            http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html


 


            The Writing Center at Michigan Tech


            http://www.hu.mtu.edu/wc/resources.html