rilsa week4
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RILSAWeek4TRANSCRIPT
Session 4:Research continued
Research and Information Literacy
ENG 216A
Professor Susan Acampora
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf20rD6XXvg
Review: Finding a Topic
Homework Review
• Topic Idea: The N-Word• Academic Focus: The Impact of the N-Word• Question: Why do many African Americas used the N-
Word amongst themselves?• What are the consequences of using a racial slur as part
of everyday language?• Thesis: Media and popular culture associate the use of
the N Word with cool and camaraderie, but it is ultimately destructive to the self esteem and self-image of African-Americans.
Developing a Search Strategy: Selecting Terms
Media and popular culture associate the use of the N Word with cool and camaraderie, but it is ultimately destructive to the self esteem of African-Americans.
N Word Media and popular culture
Destructive Self-Esteem
“er” vs “a” Hip Hop Impact Self-image
Racial slurs MTV Consequences Self Respect
Slang Gangsta Culture Why? Why Not? Self-worth
Remember
• Good places to find additional subject terms for your research:– CREDO - Topic Pages– Gale Academic One File – Term Cluster– Google and Wikipedia – Research databases– Library Catalog
The Library Catalog
Advanced Searching
Today we will continue to explore:
• Academic Search Complete
The Search Strategy
• Connecting your terms with Boolean Operators
• Wildcards and Truncation• Modifiers and Limiters
Boolean Operators
• AND = narrow your topic
• OR = broaden your topic
• NOT = will eliminate the term it preceeds
Example from Ebscohost Help
An example of a good search strategy
“child abuse” or “family violence”AND
alcohol* or “substance abuse”
Another Example using NOT
Subjects vs Keywords
Keywords
• Keywords are terms that are often part of common everyday language.
• Most databases search by keyword by default• keywords will retrieve items contain the
keyword anywhere in the record• Good to use if you are not getting a lot of
results
Subject Terms
• Subject Terms are official terms used to index research
• They are considered a “controlled vocabulary” and are very specific
• Most databases have an online subject guide or index where you can find this controlled vocabulary
• It is best to use Subject Terms to narrow a search that has brought you too many results
Wildcard Symbols ? #
• ?• #
• For example: – Wom?n to find woman or women– Colo#r will look for color or colour
Wildcards and Truncation
• Use the wildcard and truncation symbols to create searches where there are unknown characters, multiple spellings or various endings
• Never as the first character of a search term
Nesting
• If you want to find a specific subject phrase, not simple each word in the phrase:
– Nest your terms between parentheses:
“teenage pregnancy”
Truncation Symbol *
• Replace the ending of a search term with an * to find all variations of that word.
For example, type comput* to find the words computer or computing.
Limiters and Modifiers
Lab Exercise• See handout of the first page of a successful
search result for your topic• Note the various fields: Subject, keyword,
Author, Title• Go to Academic Search Complete andLocate the article by two different approaches using the fields available.If you succeed you get the whole article!!