North Seattle Community College North Seattle Community College
Library & Media Services

Research Guide for ENG102: Censored Art / Web 2.0

Our Lady by Alma

Prepared by Elinor Appel
NSCC Librarian (contact info).

These library workshops will help you to:

  • Find and select two appropriate resources for your paper.
  • Cite these resources correctly.
  • Acquire research techniques that will help you in other classes and beyond.

To get help:

Email me, Ask an Online Librarian, or come to the library reference desk and chat in person.

NSCC Library (this will open in a new window)

"Our Lady." Image source: Alma Lopez. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Consider your keywords (search terms) in order to retrieve the results you want.

  • When you search, remember to use both broad and narrow search terms: Facebook (narrow), Web 2.0 (broader); Internet (very broad). Adjust your terms to fit the tool you are searching. 

Websites

Always check your online source for Authority, Bias, and Currency. (Web Evaluation Guide - PDF)

  • Authority: who created the content? Does it reference the sources/authors of statements it makes?
  • Bias: what is the bias, mission, or standpoint of the resource? Is its bias clear?
  • Currency: when was the page last updated? Is the information still relevant?
These are questions you will need to answer when you include the web content in your paper -- or decide whether or not to include it.

Exercise I: Evaluating Web Resources for Authority (who is the author?), Bias (point of view, purpose), and Currency (last update). (Example)

Some articles online are incomplete and/or require you to pay for the full text. Well, guess what? You may already have paid for the article with your student fees. Search the Library's periodical locator by journal/magazine title to see whether we have the full text in our library databases.

To find the periodical locator:

  1. Start on the library web page and look under "search for articles":

  2. Find and click on the periodical locator link:

    3. Type in the title of the magazine or journal:


  3. Check the holding information against the date of the article.

Articles

Periodical databases contain full-text articles in publications ranging from popular to scholarly. These publications vary by audience and purpose, so think about which kind of article will serve your topic best. If you can't remember how to distinguish between periodicals, click on this overview.

Refer to Finding Articles for tips on how to search ProQuest using keywords and Topics. Finding the related ProQuest Topics will help you retrieve related articles when your terms have two different meanings, for instance race.

Again: think about your keywords. Experiment with related terms, for instance: social-networking sites, Web 2.0, online communities.

  • and – for combining concepts/keywords, will narrow the search: censorship and art
  • or – when you are using related terms, will broaden the search: Web 2.0 or "online communities"
  • * - when you have related terms with the same stem term: censor* for censors, censoring, censorhip.

Recommended periodical databases:

  • ProQuest Direct - a general database with a range of articles
  • Academic Search Premier - another general database with a range of articles
  • eLibrary Academic - an articles database that includes images, transcripts
  • Ethnic NewsWatch - articles from ethnic and minority publications
  • JSTOR - scholarly articles in the Social Sciences and Humanities

To access these databases from off campus, log in with your Student ID Number and last name.

Exercise II: Finding articles in newspapers, magazines, and scholarly publications.

  • Groups 1: find an article from a newspaper on censorship of Lopez's "Our Lady."
  • Groups 2: find an article from a magazine on censorship of Lopez's "Our Lady."
  • Groups 3: : find a scholarly article on "censorship of Seranno's of Lopez's "Our Lady."

Books

Books can be a source both reputable background information and also more indepth information on your topic.

Refer to Finding Books for tips on searching the catalog using keywords. Begin with a Keyword Relevance search:


Once you find a title you like, check location, call number, and availability. You will locate the book by its call number. Make sure you also confirm the library location of the material.

A few final points:

  • Can't find a book on your topic? Consider searching more broadly, then check the index of the book for information related to your topic. (Just because your topic isn't in the title doesn't mean it isn't in the book!)
  • For some topics you will find more information in books, for others it will be more useful to search periodical databases for articles, or the Internet. This is especially true of newer information (for instance a topic such as identity and social-networking sites).

Citing your sources

When you cite your sources, who will need to identify who you are quoting along with the quote. You will also need to cite the entire source in proper MLA format at the end of your paper.

Example of an in-text (parenthetical) citation:

Full citation on Works Cited page:

Exercise III: Create a full citation for a Works Cited page for the following quote. You will need to look up the book in the catalog to get its publication information. Use the MLA handout (blue) to help you format your citation correctly. You may work in pairs. Be prepared to share your work on the board.

In their book Facebook for Dummies, Product Managers Abram and Pearlman remind their readers, "When you are creating a profile on Facebook, you aren't just representing yourself. You also reflect how you see yourself" (73).

Additional resources:

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