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| Your Go-to Site |
Assignment: In a two-paragraph comment to this blog post, identify the resource site that has proved most useful for you. I'm hoping that we can share the particular online databases, print bibliographies, genre companions, etc., that have become our go-to sites whenever we need to find additional research on our topics. Your comment should include a way for others to find this site, explain how it has been useful to you, note any disadvantages, and include your recommendations for how it might be useful to other literary researchers.
In order to post a comment here, you must have an online account compatible with Blogspot. You may use either an existing online account like your SU gmail account or set up a new one expressly for online work in this class. You may use whatever online moniker you prefer (barring the offensive). After the semester is over and final grades issued, you are free to disable any online account you used for this class. This assignment counts as one participation grade and is due by midnight on 2/10/12.
The resource site that has been most useful for me has been JSTOR. I have been using this resource since I have been at Shenandoah. I always find at least something on JSTOR, no matter what I am searching for. I like JSTOR because it is easy for me to search the material. For example, I type in the subject and do a general search, then a search for a symbol or theme in the piece of literature and check "Search within these results." This usually narrows it down so I can find material. I recommend it because it is easy to search through, and usually comes up with many results.
ReplyDeleteIt is very easy to find JSTOR. It can be accessed by clicking on "SU Journal Locator" at the bottom of this blog, or by clicking on the "Library" tab from Blackboard. From there, click "Databases and Electronic Resources" on the upper right side of the screen, then search under the letter J for JSTOR. Once you enter the site, you can search for anything you want.
The database that I find most useful for literary research is the Literature Resource Center which is through Gale. It's great because you can find overviews of works as well as criticism and reviews. You can also locate journals that are on other sites through this database. It's also convenient because it always has full text. When using this you never have to go on a hunt to find other journals through other databases. It has many options as well to narrow searches or you can be broad in a search as well.
ReplyDeleteLiterature Resource Center can be found from SU's main homepage. Click the "Academics" tab at the top. From there click "Libraries" then click "Databases and Electronic Resources" and it's under the letter "L."
The most useful resource that I have found has been the bibliographical information in the text of my work. It has provided a wealth of information and other resources that I have been able to track down. The simplest, and most effective way I have found, when looking for these sources (aside from the SU libraries webcat,) has been google scholar. Using the title of the text I am searching for and the name of the author, the engine will search through databases and find if the work is available through one of them. If the text I am looking for is a book, it will provide me with the proper information to track it down the ILL. When this doesn't prove useful I default to JSTOR and their wonderful advanced search feature, which, when used correctly, is simply amazing.
ReplyDeleteGoogle scholar can be accessed through scholar.google.com. I recommend having already signed into your SU gmail account so you are able to easily access the databases. JSTOR is under the SU libraries "database" page and can be found under "J".
When it comes to finding the right online source for a research paper, I've always had issues. I'd find one for one part of the topic and then it would be completely useless for the second part. But for this research paper, the site that I found the most helpful is definitely JSTOR. It's an online database that has a bunch of general topics that you can find very specific articles and scholar documents on almost anything if you look hard enough.
ReplyDeleteFinding JSTOR is actually easy. Just log into Blackboard with your school ID and then click the Library tab in the upper left corner. Click online databases and the hit the letter J on the list, or you can just scroll down until you find it or just type it in the search box. I like JSTOR because it's user friendly (unlike some of the other databases) and it has real scholars submitting their articles on the most specific of topics or the most general.
The most useful resource I have encountered so far is JSTOR. For my topic, it actually contains a lot of useful journals that help me on my research and inform me of my topic even more. The way a person can find this database is by logging on to the SU LIbrary page and search for JSTOR. Even if one does not have an account with a university, they can go on to Google and type in "JSTOR" and the main site will pop up where they can use it for their research if they create an account.
ReplyDeleteWhile this site can have it's disadvantages, like bringing up a lot of articles that are not useful to my topic but just include a word I typed in from my topic, the articles that are brought up I can either include in my paper or just read to get more information on the topic itself. This site is useful to me and can be useful to other researchers searching on any topic they desire.
I usually begin at the beginning. Even before I narrow down what I am truly looking for, I search Google scholar. By doing this I get a feel for what others are writing about the subject. If I see something I am interested in I click it and read...even if it isn't considered "scholarly." I do this because it helps me generate ideas or delete an idea. In many cases, Google scholar directs me to information on JSTOR. I use JSTOR all the time when doing research. I also use bibliographic information provided in the footnotes of the text if they are useful. Many times I end up frustrated, but I still log on to the SU website and use the library databases.
ReplyDeleteWe should all know how to use Google scholar but just in casies...you log onto googlescholar.com and enter your search term. To use JSTOR I usually go straight to the site, but you can also access it through SU's library website under the databases link. Another thing I do...and this depends on the topic I am writing about...is to go to the History channel website and search my topic there. Surprisingly they have a lot of stuff there...type it in the search bar...you'll see.
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DeleteSince coming into this course, I have learned that JSTOR- you can find that in the Journal locator) and Literary Resource Center are useful for finding research information, yet last semester, I was in a cource called Social Issues and found that Google Scholar as well as thinktanks are places where you can find accurate information when doing research. For google scholar, go to google and type in googlescholar and type in a specific word or advance search it. You'll get your research in full text and the research is pretty up to date. For thinktanks, go to thinktanks. com and you'll find research involving social issues, but she the articles and information there is fresh and up to date.
ReplyDeleteIt's been useful for me by allowing me to share professional research and facts to my classmates and even though this was for a social issues class, literary research can be useful for these search engines as well. All in all, this course has introduced me to JSTOR and a plethora of other source engines which will probably outbeat my other sites, so far while being on JSTOR and the literary center site , I've been impressed, but it's nothing wrong with checking the other sites out as well. ~peace
There’s nothing like a good MySpace page to really get my research rolling… No, actually, I will have to be unoriginal and second everyone who praised JSTOR. It is a phenomenal resource, free of charge, and easily accessible. Just go to JSTOR.org and log in through Shenandoah University as your institution, and you have full access to a multitude of scholarly materials. You can even use the search engine before you’ve settled securely on a topic, to just check how much writing is already out there on it—if there’s so much you’re wading through tens of pages of results and need to narrow your search down significantly, or so little to the point that it will be hard to fashion a paper at all and you might want to consider switching subjects.
ReplyDeleteThe only disadvantage is the overwhelming amount of material that sometimes gets thrown at you. A search can bring up so many hits that you don’t even know where to start, in which case it’s time to—once again—narrow it down. The more focused and specific a paper is, the better.
Hi. It's me, Julie. My absolute favorite 'find-site' is to date: The library. It is most times overlooked, miss-used (or not used to its fullest extent), or looked at with dread and foreboding. When is the last time we, as a collective body of college students, actually went to the library to do research? Obviously not enough; aside from finals time, our library is usually pretty empty. The best part of the library is, there is a link to the library stacks: http://shen.sirsi.net/uhtbin/webcat
ReplyDeleteon the website. Don't know what you want? Search on the site before you make the trek. What I find most helpful about using this search method is, you can look at books near by. Sometimes it is the ones we find on accident that are the keepers.
The downside for me: I do not live on campus. I do not live, actually anywhere near campus. However, my downside has its advantage. If I have limited time on campus, which happens most of the time, I can look up what I think I want at home, make some notes and hit the library with a smash-and-grab approach. I may end up with something I don't need, but if I check out enough books at a time, I'll be OK.
This is Carissa Helm. I would have to say my favorite is JSTOR too. It's super easy to use. It has hundreds of academic journals. It is organized and makes doing research a lot easier. Besides this I believe that the databases the school provides us are beyond helpful. I can always find a lot of information. If i can't find what i need in one database, I can usually find it in a different one.
ReplyDeleteI believe we all know how to use JSTOR and the databases so I'll skip explaining that. The only disadvantages is all the information you have to sift through. Depending on the topic you can get a lot of different and sometimes things that don't relate to your topic at all. But it is obviously way better then things like google.
This is Jon Bannan. The most helpful resource to me, like most people in this class has been JSTOR. It is so helpful because it not only searches the overall topic words; it also searches the text itself for how many times that that word is mentioned in the text. It sorts your results by how many times your search words appear in the text. What is also very helpful is the full text access, sometimes its hard to find a reliable website with the full text but with JSTOR you do not have to worry about that.
ReplyDeleteThe disadvantage to this is that sometimes JSTOR will bring up results that you do not need. Sometimes it feels like I am wading through a lot of material I do not need and is not helpful to me. Overall JSTOR is so helpful in writing research papers, which I will continue to use it until I graduate here.
To access JSTOR, all you have to do is log in to Blackboard, click the library tab, go to Databases and Electronic Resources, and click J to get to JSTOR, then search away!
I first started out using JSTOR to do research for my paper, as it was the one I was most familiar with. I got to JSTOR through the library link at the bottom of the su online portal. However, I changed topics a few times and found that two another sites were more useful to me.
ReplyDeleteThe Library Resource Center and the MLA International Bibliography provided me with more options than JSTOR, and I used the same search words for each. I accessed both of those through the libraries link as well, after clicking on Databases and Electronic Resources. I do not know why these two had more to offer, but I am certainly glad I checked these other cites instead of just sticking with JSTOR. I think I will also check out google scholar because I have never used that before and its been mentioned on here a few times.
I’d have to say that JSTOR is my favorite database and research tool that the school offers. Like Colleen said you get a lot of results with every search but in a way that’s beneficial since it teaches you to better refine your search terms. Before I knew about JSTOR I really disliked the research aspect of writing research papers but it’s really easy to use and unlike getting books from the actual library you don’t have to be there to use it. The only downside is that the results are journals, which are useful but you have to look elsewhere for primary texts.
ReplyDeleteHowever everyone seems to be pretty familiar with JSTOR so I think my other favorite resource would be the Library of Congress. You can view their digital collection online which is awesome because it includes all kinds of materials like books, photos, letters, etc… And if your searches don’t turn up anything in the online collection it will tell you how many results there were for physical items in the library and you can look up the catalog numbers. The library is close enough that it isn’t too much of a hassle to go peruse the catalogs.
JSTOR has definitely been my most useful resource when locating scholarly literary research. It is very easy to search and find journal articles. It is also helpful because it gives the full citation for easy reference. It is also very easy to reference back and forth because you can save the pdf file right to your desktop.
ReplyDeleteThere is a link to JSTOR through the SU Library electronic resources section. You can also type in www.JSOTR.com to open the website directly. I would highly recommend JSTOR.