Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Ms. Stephenson's Work Schedule

My normal work schedule in the Downtown Campus Library is:

10 a.m. - 8 p.m. Tuesday
5 p.m. - 8 p.m. Wednesday
8 a.m. - noon Thursday
9 a.m. - 1 p.m. Saturday

Saturday, February 7, 2009

MLA Citations Created by Citation Machine

Citation Machine is an interactive web tool to assist you in understanding the need to create proper citations for the intellectual work you produce.

Here you can create properly formatted MLA citations by inputting information about your research resources. After the citation is created you can cut and paste the result into your works cited page.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

New Twitter Account for ENC 1101

A Twitter account has been set up for this class. I will post on Twitter new links to news stories and new web sites related to your research topics and improving your research and writing skills.

You can subscribe to the Twitter account through an RSS feed so that it is on your own personal computer to check anytime you like. Or you can come to the ENC 1101 blog and click on the Twitter box to see recent postings. The most recent posting will appear in this box on the blog.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Reference Books

Books located behind Reference Desk in Library

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Title: Endangered Animals

Published by Grolier Educational, 2002.
REF QL83 .E54 2001

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Title: Endangered Animals : a reference guide to conflicting issues

Published by Greenwood Press, 2000.
REF QL82 .E55 2000

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Title: Grzimek’s Animal life encyclopedia

Published by Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. 2004
Use Cumulative Index to look up a specific animal
REF QL 3 .G7813

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Monday, February 2, 2009

Tips for Increasing Your Researching Powers

Whether using a search engine on the Web or searching a subscription database provided by the college, you will get better results if you do the following things:

(1) List of search terms and phrases: Create a list of all the words and phrases that relate to your subject BEFORE you start your research. Think of all the synonyms or substitute words also. When searching one author might use the word "teenager" where another author might us the word "youth" when writing about the same group of people. You may miss good articles by not thinking of and searching with all of the words and phrases that might be used for your topic.

(2) Advance search options: Most databases and search engines have an "Advance Search" option. It is usually one click away. What using this features does for you is that it provides more options for either narrowing or expanding your search - usually for narrowing. Narrowing allows you to hone in on just the facts that you need and helps you to avoid a lot of extraneous information that may or may not be useful. So look around the page and select "Advance Search" when offered.

(3) Select Full-Text option: Within most subscription databases there will be a place to select to see in your search-results only articles that have the full-text available for you to review. Many databases have some items that only offer an abstract and not the complete text of the item. To save time, select the "full-text" options when offered. {Note: Making this selection could mean that you will miss abstract of articles that are relevant to your topic. But, there are usually plenty of materials available in full-text, so missing a few will not matter.}

MLA Style Citations

There are several sources to help you create the perfect citation for each of sources for your paper.

One of the very best sources can be found at the OWL hosted by Purdue University. O.W.L. stands for "Online Writing Lab" and provides all kinds of help for writing your paper. So look around the web site while you are searching for information about MLA style.

The main MLA section can be found at this URL:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/

Scroll down the page, reading sections for general information, and then stop at the menu at the bottom of this page to see the specific types of citations you might be using. Clicking any menu item will take you to a page with in-depth information about a specific type of citation and examples.

Call Numbers for Library Books

Below are the mostly likely call numbers of the library's collection where you will find books on endangered species and their habitats. You can come to the library and browse books on the shelves in these sections in addition to searching the online catalog.

Be sure to look in both areas of the collection: (1) Circulation Area - books that you can check out - that circulate; and (2) the Reference Area - books that are used in the library and that do not circulate.

G Geography (General)

** GC Oceanography
** GE Environmental Sciences

Q - SCIENCE
** QH Natural history - Biology
** QK Botany
** QL Zoology