The Library Catalog (Winnebago Spectrum Web Catalog)

Doing research for a term paper or project can be a challenging yet rewarding experience. If you haven't been near a wooden card catalog lately, how do you find library materials? Most school libraries now keep their catalogs online. If you are using a Shipley computer, you can find the catalog in the Student Shortcuts folder.  Click on Library Catalog.

To get the Shipley Library Catalog at home, type in this address: http://207.106.216.5/winnebago.

Finding the Best Resources

Use general terms when looking up materials and only one or two terms at a time. You will not find anything if you type in "culture of the ancient Mayan indians," but typing in "mayan or mayans" will result in at least 9 "hits."

Look at the numbers to the left of the item for its location. VC indicates videocassette, O indicates an oversized book (placed in number order on bottom shelves), and REF indicates a Reference book. WEB means a website you can connect to right from the catalog.

The Shipley Homepage Libraries section is another good place to start your research. We have included the Documentation Handbook, an Online Resources page and Curriculum Related Websites. You will not have to search endlessly through poor information if you go here first.

When using the Internet, the best websites are government or university-generated documents indicated by an .edu or a .gov in the address. Be careful when using any website - check for an author who has included credentials (Doctor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania), a corporate author (National Institutes of Health), or any expert in the field. You should also check the date of origination or an update for currency. Avoid elementary, middle or high school projects created by students. Check for spelling, grammar, and point of view.

Our Online Subscription Databases were originally print sources before being digitized. You may depend upon them the same way you would depend upon information from a good book. CQ Researcher, for example, is a weekly publication of Congressional Quarterly. Check the Libraries section of the Shipley Homepage for descriptions of our online databases. Students and staff may come to the library for usernames and passwords.

Use the Power Library resources for additional information including the AccessPA database to find out what your public library has on a particular topic. From school, the Power Library databases are available in the student shortcut folder. From home, you will have to connect to your county library system and type in your library card's barcode. The county library addresses are on the Libraries web page. - Online Resources section toward the bottom of the page.

Where to Start

You have been assigned a research paper on Victorian costume. You have no idea what the Victorians wore or why this is important. For general information, go to an encyclopedia like World Book. Look in the index volume to find the article you need. Read the article to get an idea of what you want to write about. Encyclopedia articles break down broad topics into smaller subtopics. You will probably not be able to use the article as one of your sources, but at least you now have some ideas about your topic. Use the words or phrases from the encyclopedia article to look up your topic in book indexes or in the library catalog.

Next, you should begin to gather some materials. Photocopy the title pages of books you consult so you have all the publishing information as well as the title and author in order to find these sources later. Save websites to your Favorites. Start taking notes from sources you know you will use. Note cards are recommended, but if you don't use note cards, BE SURE TO WRITE DOWN WHERE YOU FOUND YOUR INFORMATION .This will save time when you compile your Works Cited list.

Make a list of keywords to use when looking up information. If your topic is Victorian Clothing, you should make a list of synonyms or related terms you can look up. Victorian Dress, 19^th century costume, fashion, clothing, dress, apparel, etc. are all terms you can try. If you use different terms, you will find different information. Do the same when looking in indexes of books. If your topic is Victorian Women, look up Victorian or 19^th Century family, children, marriage, home, morality, etc. The more terms you can think of, the more information you will find.

Now that you've found some sources, check them for relevance, accuracy and rreliability. Eliminate any information that seems questionable, information created by students, or information not created by an expert. You will want to use the best information possible, so be sure to include good print sources along with reliable websites.

When you write a research paper, you will need to document the sources you use (give credit to the authors) both within the paper and at the end in the form of a Works Cited page. Documentation within the paper is called "in-text documentation." A general rule of thumb is to give a brief parenthetical citation (Smith 2) after each quote as well as after every paragraph where you have used someone else's ideas. You may have read a chapter on Victorian women and summarized what you read. At the end of your summary, you must place a parenthetical citation. Anything that is not common knowledge must be cited.

For in-text documentation of Internet sources, use the author's name, or in the absence of an author, a shortened version of the document's title. If your document is called "Clothing during the Victorian Age," you may cite it like this: (Clothing).

Art, graphics, sound and video must also be given credit.

Finding information for citing from books

Example:

"Aristotle." Ancient Greece and Rome: an Encyclopedia for Students.  Ed. Carroll Moulton. New

       York: Charles Scribner's, Sons, 1998.

See the Documentation Handbook and/or the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers for additional help.

Citing Websites with Very Long URLs

Some websites have very long addresses. Some search engines allow you to "remove frames." This will give you a shortened address. It is also acceptable to delete anything after the first slash mark.

Many database addresses change weekly to make room for additional articles. It is acceptable to truncate or delete additional address components after dot com. (e.g., www.gale.com).

When you are compiling your list of sources that you used in your paper or project, list them alphabetically by the last name of the author. If you are using sources without authors, the first important word of the document's title goes first. All sources (those with authors' names and those without) are arranged alphabetically. Citations should be double spaced and every line after the first line is indented. Your Works Cited List might look something like this:

Bender, Pat. Costume through the Ages. Bryn Mawr: Shipley Press,

     2000. [book title]

"A Look at Victorian Clothing." 1998. 21 Jan. 2002

     <http://www.victorians.com>. [website]

Nenadic, Stana. "The Social Shaping of Business Behaviour in the

     Nineteenth-Century Women's Garment Trades." Journal of Social

     History. Spring 1998. Gale Student Resource Center Gold. 22

     Jan. 2002<www.infotrac.galegroup.com>. [online database article]

For more information and some step by step hints for researching, here are two good websites:

Springfield Township High School's Research Guide (Montgomery County) : http://www.springfield.k12.pa.us/rguide/ 

and A Research Guide for Students by I. Lee : http://www.aresearchguide.com/.

Don't forget to ask the library staff for help. We have years of experience doing research and may be able to suggest resources or techniques to help make your job easier.