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Research Guide for Group Projects: The Cradle Will Rock

Prepared by Elinor Appel NSCC Librarian (contact info.) NSCC Library (this will open in a new window) Required sources for your assignment: Print (book, reference book) Database article (reference or periodical) Your choice! "Man, Controller of the Universe," by Diego Rivera. Image source: Dr. Karen Kleinfelder, California State U. Image holder: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, Mexico. All rights reserved.

Finding Books

Books - use these for both background information (reference books) or in-depth information (circulating collection).

Examples of the range of reference books available:

• McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, 4 vols. [Ref PN 1625 .M3]
• The New Biographical Dictionary of Film [Ref PN 1982.2 .T49 2004]
• Oxford Companion to American Theatre [Ref PN 2220 .B6 1984]
• The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance (2 vols.) [Ref PN 2035 .94 2004]
• Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, 4 vols. [Ref HQ 1115 .R69 2000]
• World Eras, 10 vols. [Ref D 20 .W87 2001]

Refer to Finding Books for tips on searching the catalog using keywords and Subjects. Keep your starting terms simple and broad.

For example, if you are researching vaudeville:

• Begin with a Keyword Relevance search: vaudeville.
• Find a title that looks good, for instance No Applause -- Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.
• Click on the title to open the record. Check location, call number [PN 1968.U5 T73], location, and availability.
• Locate the Subjects in the record: Vaudeville --United States --History.
• Use that Subjects link to to see if there is more material available on your topic. Or just go and browse that call-number section of the library.

Finding Articles

Periodical and reference databases are your best resource for finding articls. Refer to Finding Articles for tips on how to search ProQuest using keywords and Topics..

• and – for combining concepts/keywords, will narrow the search: Brecht and theatre (limits search)
• or – when you are using related terms, will broaden the search: epic theatre or alienation effect (broadens search)
• “ ” – use quotes around phrases if you need to show that the words are together: "federal theatre project " (not necessary in an advanced search)
• Topics - use Topics in ProQuest, Subjects in Academic Search Premier, and other controlled vocabulary links to find related articles

Other periodical and reference databases:

• Academic Search Complete - another general database with a range of articles
• History Resource Center - articles about historical events, includes biographies
• JSTOR - older articles from academic journals
• Literature Resource Center - information about people and events in literary history

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

Websites

To find authoritative information on the Internet, be sure to use strategies like limiting you searches by domain (edu, gov, etc.), and checking for authority, bias and currency. Does the web resource provide references? Always check to make sure th author /creator of the content has the credentials to speak as an authority.

• Vaudeville! - excellent student site published by the University of Virginia, includes references
• "Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads" - PBS Flashpoints, short article
• Federal Theatre Project - article from the Library of Congress
• Mercury Theatre - audio files from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Collection
• "She Loved Mussolini: Margherita Sarfatti and Italian Fascism," scholarly article in Right Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremists Around the World, via Google Books. Or get the print version from our library: JC 573.R55 2002.
• Works Progress Administration - from EH.Net Encyclopedia, supported by the Economic History Association and other academic organizations

Citing your sources

Your instructor has given you citation information for your bibliography. Here are some additional resources:

• Citation Tools , North Seattle Community College Library
• MLA Formatting and Style Guide (Owl Writing Center at Purdue University)
• Noodlebib - an excellent online citation tool that allows you to format and save your sources, then export them into a perfect "Works Cited document. (Example of a Works Cited page in PDF..) Register with Noodlebib while on campus, then use it from any location.
• Alternatives: a "quick and dirty" citation generator is KnightCite; or use the citation generator provided by periodical databases like ProQuest and EBSCO -- but beware, these citations are imperfect and you will still have to correct these citations by hand.

Federal Theatre Project newsreel. Source: danieljbmitchel on Youtube.