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Google Earth -- see where your culture lives! To get to this page on the Internet
Images are from Corbis.com
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name_____________________________ Go to these Web pages for this online class
If your browser
is Internet Explorer, make this page a Favorite.
Near the top of your screen, click on It will help if you first print out these Web pages. That way, when you are not on this page, you can easily read the text and do what comes next. When you need to come back to these Web pages (e.g., to click on a link), you can get back to them easily by going to your Favorites or your Bookmarks.
Your first task will be to identify some culture groups, and then explore whether there will be sufficient information in books, articles, and on the Internet about that group for the subjects you need to research, which are:
For example, suppose I identified the Kmhmu as a cultural group I thought I wanted to use for this assignment. From The Encyclopedia of World Cultures I learn that the largest number of Kmhmu live in Laos, but there are also Kmhmu in Thailand, in China, and in Vietnam. Kmhmu are well known for crafting baskets of all kinds. I may be intrigued by the Kmhmu, but I need to find out if I can identify enough information on them to support my research project. Here
are some things to check out:
Use some resources about countries:
You
can also explore these:
Type in your culture name(s). If you don't find anything, type in indigenous peoples as a subject heading for works about more than one culture group in a regional area. Another subject heading to try is native cultures You can also refer to the handout that lists books (print and online) in the Cabrillo College Library on specific culture groups
Electronic books The library has about 15,000 electronic books. You can search inside the books for the occurence of words. To get to them
If
you are coming in from off campus, you'll just type in your library
card number.
Encyclopedia of World Cultures is a marvelous resource supplying information about cultural groups. Subjects covered include economy, marriage, social organization, religion, etc. It is in the library's reference collection under the call number ref GN550.E53 The
information in this encyclopedia is based on the Human Relations Area
Files at Yale University. If you go up to UCSC's library, you can
use the full Human Relations Area Files.
You can read an article on your computer screen, of course. When you are researching, you might want to print, save, or email the article. Once you have an article on your screen, click on print, email, or save (towards the top of your screen). Academic Search Premier will be your primary database for high quality articles on your culture. Google Scholar, though, is also becoming an important resource. When Google finds something on the Web and thinks it is a periodical article (it uses a computer algorithm to look for tell-tale signs such as volume, issue, page numbers, etc.), then it throws it into Scholar. Some, but not all, of these articles will be available to you full text. Here's a sample search:
Scholar is at scholar.google.com or go to google.com and click on More.
The quality and usefulness of Web resources varies a good deal. Some useful criteria to use forevaluative purposes are:
Evaluating
Internet Resources presents questions to ask to determine whether
information presented by a Web page meets those criteria.Some
"tricks" to use in evaluating Web sites 3. Frequently (but not always), a tilde (the symbol ~) prior to a file name indicates that it is someone's personal Web page. Some places on the Web are in the business of hosting personal Web pages. When a domain name has geocities, angelfire, tripod, or aol in it, the Web page is probably a personal one. 4. If a site has a long file name, try taking off the last part of the URL to see the Web page or site to which it is hooked.5. If you're curious as to who owns a domain name, go to register.com and find out Evaluating
Internet Resources For example, here's a search for resources on the Cayman Islanders in Google's Web index:
Google is alerting you that there are resources in Google Books you might want to look at. There are actually 225 books on Cayman Islanders! The URL for Google Books is books.google.com. You can go directly there and do a search over millions of books! If there are sufficient numbers of news stories and if people are blogging about the topic, you will also be alerted to those resources, as in this example:
There are many sources of videos on the Web these days. You probably use YouTube. But, largest resource with quality commercial videos (not home made) is Go to Blinkx and look for videos on your culture. There are 275 videos at Blinkx about the Cayman Islanders! How many for your culture? _____________ To watch a video on your computer, you may need to hold down the Ctrl key (bottom left part of your keyborad) when you click to go to it. (to disable the pop-up blocker.)
As you research
your various topics, e.g., food or economic issues, that relate to
your culture, you may find some of these reference books very useful. Dictionary of Native American Literature, by Andrew Wiget, editor. Location: Reference PM155 .D53 1994 Encyclopedia
Latina : History, Culture, and Society in the United States,
by Ilan Stavans, editor in chief. Location: Reference
E184.S75 E587 2005 Encyclopedia of African Peoples, by the Diagram Group. Location: Reference DT15 .E53 2000 Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, edited by Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, Cornel West. Location: Reference E185 .E54 1996 Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture, edited by Edward L. Davis. Location: Reference DS779.23 .E53 2005 Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Solomon H. Katz, editor in chief ; William Woys Weaver, associate editor. Location: Reference GT2850 .E53 2003 Encyclopedia of Japan: Japanese History and Culture, From Abacus to Zori, by Dorothy Perkins. Location: Reference DS805 .P47 1991 Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, Barbara A. Tenenbaum, editor in chief. Location: Reference F1406 .E53 1996 Encyclopedia of Religion, by Lindsay Jones, editor in chief. Location: Reference BL31 .E46 2005 Hispanic
Culture of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, edited
by Peter Standish. Location: Reference F1234 .H794
1996 The Web is rich in images. You'll want to know how to copy an image from the Web and insert it into a Word document. Go to Corbis.com. Search for and select an image.
Your image is there. Word is not PhotoShop (an expensive software program for altering images) -- you can't really "doctor up" your image, but you can do some manipulations. You can write next to and below the image. To put text around the image -- click on the image, go to Format -> Picture. Click on Layout tab, and select the wrapping format you want. You can also, you'll note, change the size and do some other minor alterations.
Now that you have found all this wonderful stuff, how do you cite it? Your instructor wants you to use Turabian style, which is based on Chicago Style Manual. Assembling a List of Works Cited in Your Paper from Duke University covers Turabian style citations. To get to other
style guides: from the Cabrillo College Library homepage,
click on Internet Links, then click on Style
Guides.
Google Earth is a remarkable resource -- it provides satellite images from everywhere on earth. If you already have Google Earth, look to see where your culture lives! If you don't yet have Google Earth on your computer, and want to install it, follow these steps:
Once you open Google Earth, note that you can also explore the heavens by clicking on Google Sky. What a deal!
Please share your thoughts about how this worked for you. Thanks!
J.
Anderson, T. N. Smalley, last rev. 12/07
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,
then on Add
to Favorites. If your browser is Firefox, Bookmark
the page.
Accuracy 
to
download and install it.