Published by Creative Education P O Box 227 Mankato Minnesota 56002 Creative Education is an imprint of The Creative Company www thecreativecompany us Design and production by Liddy Walseth Art direction by Rita Marshall Printed in the United States of America Illustrations by Elwood H Smith 2012 Copyright 2013 Creative Education International copyright reserved in all countries No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bodden Valerie Finding print and subscription sources by Valerie Bodden p cm Research for writing Includes bibliographical references and index Summary A narrative guide to conducting research with print and subscription sources complete with an overview of methodologies tips for locating reference works and periodicals and helpful resources ISBN 978-1-60818-205-3 hard cover ISBN 978-1-56660-149-8 eBook 1 Research Methodology Juvenile literature 2 Reference books Juvenile literature 3 Periodicals Databases Juvenile literature 4 Library research Juvenile literature 5 Information literacy Juvenile literature I Title ZA3080 B635 2012 001 4’2 dc23 2011040491 First Edition 246897531
TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 INTRODUCTION CHAPTERS 6 L E A R N I N G H O W TO L E A R N 16 HITTING THE BOOKS AND ARTICLES 2 6 R E A D YO U R R E F E R E N C E S 36 ARTICLES WITH ANSWERS ACTIVE RESEARCH 1 4 E X P LO R I N G E VA L U AT I O N 24 P U T T I N G I T I N P R I N T 3 4 TO U R I N G T H E R E F E R E N C E S E C T I O N 4 4 A DVA N C I N G YO U R S E A R C H RESOURCES 4 6 G LO S S A RY 47 WEB SITES 48 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 48 INDEX
YOU CONDUCT RESEARCH EVERY DAY AND YOU PROBABLY DON’T EVEN REALIZE IT When you want to know the score of last night’s football game you check on line If you’re wondering how to spell or define supercilious you get out the dictionary And when you’ve forgotten the math assignment you e-mail your friends to ask them Although these research situations are rather informal the skills you use for them are similar to those you need to conduct research for writing After all research is basically just a search a search for sources that contain specific relevant and accurate information about your topic At the heart of nearly any research assignment are print sources books newspapers journals magazines and more Why These sources can provide useful background information as well as in-depth coverage of almost any top ic imaginable from Antarctica to zebras Let’s say for example that you have been asked to write about air pollution You can start the writing process by going to the library and checking out several books downloading online journal 4
articles and even viewing government records on the Internet With the hundreds of thousands of new books published every year along with millions of articles how do you even begin to find the ones you need Fortunately library catalogs and databases categorize print resources according to their subjects authors titles and more And hundreds of ref erence books provide additional information on general subjects along with lists of where to get more With so many resources at your fingertips it will be hard not to find some thing about your topic 5
