Popular vs Scholarly: Other Resources

Online resources have given us access to more knowledge than ever before. We're buried in data, and defining what is and what is not genuine information becomes more of a challenge all the time. In this fifth edition of Research Strategies, author William Badke helps you make sense of all of the available information, shows you how to navigate and discern it, and details how to use it to your advantage to become a better researcher. Badke focuses on informational research and provides a host of tips and advice not only for conducting research, but also for everything from finding a topic to writing an outline to documenting resources and polishing the final draft. Study guides, practice exercises, and assignments at the end of each chapter help reinforce each lesson. An experienced research instructor who has led thousands of students to become better researchers, Badke uses humor to help you gain a better understanding of today's complex, technological world. Research Strategies provides the skills and strategies to efficiently and effectively complete a research project from topic to finished product. It shows how research can be exciting and even fun.

Most students faced with writing a research paper probably start at the same place--Google. Here's a cutting-edge guide that will save your students from fruitless, random web searching. Arlene Quartiello, formerly an academic librarian who now teaches college English, and Jane Devine, coauthor of Going Beyond Google, provide up-to-date guidance for using traditional and online sources. Students will learn to select a topic, effectively find and evaluate the best information in both print and electronic formats, and produce accurate and complete citations based on current versions of important styles guides and web resources. Each chapter includes exercises that reinforce the instruction and guidance. A companion website accompanies this new edition to give readers hot links for all of the book's URLs, and supplementary materials including additional exercises and examples that help clarify how to apply the techniques. Written in an easy, breezy style and filled with real-world examples, illustrative diagrams, and screen shots, this is the ideal guide for anyone aspiring to write an excellent research paper on their own or following this text in a research skills or information literacy course.

Schaum's is here--to help you write great research papers The experts at Schaum's are at your service-ready to help you with concise, complete, step-by-step instructions that will make writing research papers a breeze, not a burden. The clear, concise guidelines and in-depth instruction in this book will show you how to write high-quality research papers that will help you succeed academically and in the professional world. You'll quickly learn how to: Select and narrow your topic Evaluate and present evidence persuasively Avoid plagiarism and other novice mistakes Learn from examples, sample papers, and model documentation

With more than 400,000 copies now in print, The Craft of Research is the unrivaled resource for researchers at every level, from first-year undergraduates to research reporters at corporations and government offices.   Seasoned researchers and educators Gregory G. Colomb and Joseph M. Williams present an updated third edition of their classic handbook, whose first and second editions were written in collaboration with the late Wayne C. Booth. The Craft of Research explains how to build an argument that motivates readers to accept a claim; how to anticipate the reservations of readers and to respond to them appropriately; and how to create introductions and conclusions that answer that most demanding question, “So what?”   The third edition includes an expanded discussion of the essential early stages of a research task: planning and drafting a paper. The authors have revised and fully updated their section on electronic research, emphasizing the need to distinguish between trustworthy sources (such as those found in libraries) and less reliable sources found with a quick Web search. A chapter on warrants has also been thoroughly reviewed to make this difficult subject easier for researchers   Throughout, the authors have preserved the amiable tone, the reliable voice, and the sense of directness that have made this book indispensable for anyone undertaking a research project.

The information world has undergone drastic changes since the publication of the 3rd edition of The Oxford Guide to Library Research in 2005, and Thomas Mann, a veteran reference librarian at the Library of Congress, has extensively revised his text to reflect those changes. This book willanswer two basic questions: First, what is the extent of the significant research resources you will you miss if you confine your research entirely, or even primarily, to sources available on the open Internet? Second, if you are trying to get a reasonably good overview of the literature on aparticular topic, rather than just "something quickly" on it, what are the several alternative methods of subject searching - which are not available on the Web - that are usually much more efficient for that purpose than typing keywords into a blank search box, with the results displayed byrelevance-ranking computer algorithms?This book shows researchers how to do comprehensive research on any topic. It explains the variety of search mechanisms available, so that the researcher can have the reasonable confidence that s/he has not overlooked something important. This includes not just lists of resources, but discussionsof the ways to search within them: how to find the best search terms, how to combine the terms, and how to make the databases (and other sources) show relevant material even when you don't know how to specify the best search terms in advance. The book's overall structuring by nine methods ofsearching that are applicable in any subject area, rather than by subjects or by types of literature, is unique among guides to research. Also unique is the range and variety of concrete examples of what to do - and of what not to do. The book is not "about" the Internet: it is about the best alternatives to the Internet - the sources that are not on the open Web to begin with, that can be found only through research libraries and that are more than ever necessary for any kind of substantive scholarly research. More than anyother research guide available, this book directly addresses and provides solutions to the serious problems outlined in recent studies documenting the profound lack of research skills possessed by today's "digital natives."