Assignment | Research Paper: Humans in a Digital World (Khalaf): Finding Sources

For this assignment, you are required to find and use a minimum of 2 sources from Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints.

When you search the database, remember that for this assignment you will "explore multiple perspectives about specific challenges humans face in a digital world." From your topic development sheet, consider what aspects of your topic you want to find supporting research about. Then use the Advanced Search option in Opposing Viewpoints to find sources. 

Below you will find additional credible sources to explore for your assignment including databases with scholarly journal articles, Google Scholar, and e-books. 

When we talk about "credible" sources, we mean those which are accurate and trustworthy, coming from a reputable authority. If you work within the library databases, you don't have to worry about this as much, because information sources have been evaluated and selected based on academic standards. Google, on the other hand, isn't picky, and it doesn't care about accuracy -- which means you have to work a little harder to get good information.

You can streamline the quality of your Google searches by focusing on government (.gov), education (.edu), and organization (.org) domains in your results.

• .gov is the most strict to register -- non-government entities can't get it!
• .edu is mostly universities, but you'll sometimes come across some K-12 entities with this domain. Make sure you're not reading a student paper as a source, though!
• .org is the least reliable of these three, since it doesn't take much to form an organization.

Google has some advanced search commands to make this quicker. Just add site:___ to your search! E.g. site:nasa.gov or even just site:.edu. Try it below!

Generally, for scholarly information, you'll want the databases for sure. You can find some via Google, but it's very likely you'll hit a paywall in the process... and these articles are not cheap. Don't do that. Search these instead.

Even More Databases:

Consider which disciplines apply to your specific topic when choosing your databases.

Research Databases (Main Page)

Databases (A-Z List)

Wait, are these credible or or are they scholarly?

Yes.

Books are just a medium rather than a class of information. There are scholarly books, there are credible non-scholarly ("popular") works, there are reference works (e.g. encyclopedias -- which are not usually appropriate for your final works cited), and there's junk books. Nonfiction is not the determiner of scholarly.

Scholarly books, like scholarly articles, will be authored by subject-matter expert (PhD not hobbyist), provide copious citations, and will be published by a university press (e.g. University of Texas Press) or a professional society (e.g. the American Psychological Association).

Access online library materials through the library databases!

To access the databases  from off-campus, you will be prompted to enter your LSC email/password or your 14-digit library barcode.

These databases will generally start you out with a basic one-field search, which is okay... but we can do better with the Advanced Search.

When you're constructing your search, think about how to break your topic down into little bite-sized chunks. 

Advanced Search Structure

You're making a wishlist for your results: articles need to discuss Term 1 and Term 2 and Term 3 and Term 4...

• AND
  • The most powerful limiter and the default option in your advanced search.
• NOT
  • Eliminate irrelevant results, e.g. Civil War NOT United States.
• OR
  • Strategically include synonyms, e.g. ice cream or frozen yogurt.

What words do you need? How do you know what to search?

Your background research to explore your topic idea is how you'll discover the vocabulary you need. Start broad with Google and Wikipedia searches.

Plus, your background research will help you narrow your topic down to a manageable level!