Cabrillo College Library 

What's on this page

Background info

Analyze

Periodical articles

Newspapers

Books & eBooks

Search engines

Statistics

Transfer images

Share your thoughts

 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Composition and Critical Thinking
 

name_____________________________

Background information -- get yourself oriented to the topic

Topics have to be "the right size" before you can really tackle them. If a topic is too broad, you get lost in generalizations. If a topic is too narrow, sufficient information isn't available.
topic is current, has implications for people who make policy ("revolutions" in former Soviet Union; smoking; trade in children; prisons)

CQ Researcher

  1. Go to Library homepage
  2. Click on Fulltext articles
  3. Click on CQ Researcher

You can email these articles!
topic is current, of general interest (e.g., terrorism, abortion, education) Public Agenda Online -- click on Issue Guides (there are also Research Reports)
topic concerns a famous person

Biography Resource Center

  1. Go to Library homepage
  2. Click on Fulltext articles
  3. Click on Biography Resource Center

You can email these articles!


your notes____________________________________________

____________________________________________________

____________________________________________________

Analyze your topic
location and/or specific group?  
time period: current, historical?  
likely resources: books? articles (magazines & newspapers)? Web?  
what are the best keywords? what key phrases best express your topic?

 

 

 


Periodical Articles

EBSCOhost's Academic Search Elite provides access to information about articles published in approximately 3,200 periodicals (both magazines and journals); for about 2,000 of those periodicals, fulltext copies of the articles are in the database. Here's how you use EBSCOhost

  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library homepage 
  2. Click on Fulltext Articles  [If you are coming in from off campus, your user ID is your library card number] 
  3. On the next screen, click on Magazine & Journal Articles  (EBSCOhost) (top left)
  4. On the next screen, click on 
  5. On the next screen, click on  
  6. Click in the small box next to Full Text. This will limit your search to articles that are fulltext in the database.
  7. Type in your search terms.  Then click on  Search

Click on a periodical title to get to the screen with full information about it

Search using various combinations of your keywords, and note down , below, information about an article you find:

Article title _____________________________________________

Periodical title (look where it says Source):________________________

Date of the periodical_______________________________________ 

NOTE: Just so you know -- 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).

For newspaper coverage, use National Newspaper Articles
  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library homepage
  2. Click on Fulltext Articles [If you are coming in from off-campus, your Library card number is your user ID]
  3. Select National Newspaper Articles

Information about articles you found:

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

You can also email these articles!
Need more BACKGROUND INFO? Need BOOKS?

Use an online encyclopedia

  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library
  2. Click on Fulltext Articles
  3. Click on Britannica Online Encyclopedia

AND/OR

  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library
  2. Click on Internet Links
  3. Click on Reference
  4. Scroll down to Encyclopedias

AND/OR go back to explore CQ Researcher or Public Agenda some more

Use the Library's Online Catalog

  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library
  2. Click on Library Catalog

You might try a WORDS search -- that way, you'll pick up terms used in in author names, titles, subject headings, and content notes.

You're welcome to go downstairs, pick up books and bring them back to the classroom.

eBooks: Did you bring up information about a book and, instead of giving you a call number, it says Access this electronic book via the World Wide Web? It's an eBook. Read Information about eBooks. If you want to use eBooks from home, you must first set up an account with NetLibrary from somewhere on campus (Aptos or Watsonville). Click on "Create an Account." Remember your user name and password!

Make notes here about what you find. You might circle terms and phrases that you think will be especially useful as you search further.

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

Using Search Engines -- The importance of evaluation

This Search Tools Chart provides a lot of detail about search operations possible.
  • Use quotation marks (" ") to keep words in phrases together (example: "welfare reform")
  • If you want the search engine to recognize a letter as a capital, capitalize it. Otherwise, use lower case
  • Most search engines have an Advanced search mode which can help you do better, more precise searches

Getting to a list of Internet Search Engines

  • Be on the Cabrillo College Library homepage
  • Click on Search the Internet
  • Click on Search Engines
  • Google is one of the best, large search engines
Criteria to apply when evaluating Web resources:
Accuracy Authority Objectivity Currency Coverage



Keeping in mind the five criteria, above, search for Web sites about your topic. Make notes below about 3 quality Web sites you find:

1. URL____________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

2. URL____________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

3. URL____________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

Statistics -- You may want to look up statistical information for your research topic. Many/many statistical resources are on the Web. To get to a good selection of them
  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library homepage
  2. Click on Internet Links
  3. Click on Statistics
  4. The resources you will probably use the most are under California Statistics and U.S. Government Statistics.

    These resources are quite good for local statistics:     CLIKS Online Data provides regional profiles, graphs, maps and raw data on topics related to children. Want rates of teenage pregnancy by county -- that's here!
    Similar information at the state and national level is available at KidsCount.
Copying Images into Word Documents
The Web is rich in images. If you copy and include an image in something you write, the origin of the image should be acknowledged. In a formal paper, write a complete citation for the source of your image. At the minimum, note the title of the Web site and the complete URL (you can just copy and paste the URL into your Word document -- Ctrl C to copy; Ctrl V to paste).

Go to Corbis or GettyImages and identify an image to copy.

To insert the image into a Word document:

  1. Open Word -- Start -> Word
  2. Click on the bottom task bar to go back to your image on the Web. With your cursor on the image, do a right click (i.e., click on the right side of the mouse); scroll down to Save Image As (using a left click)
  3. Save the image to the Desktop. (If you were at your own computer, you could save to disk or your hard drive. It's just more convenient in the classroom to use the Desktop.) You can rename the image if you want. Save it with a .jpg (for photographs and images with lots of detail), or a .gif (other images) extension
  4. Go back to your Word document (find it on the bottom task bar & click)
  5. In your Word document, position your cursor where you want the top lefthand corner of your image to be.
  6. Click on Insert on the toolbar at the top of the screen
  7. Go to Picture. Select From File
  8. Go to the Desktop and click on your image to insert it
  9. Under (or near) the image, type the word Source and include the title of the Web site where you got the image, and its URL. [Remember, if your image were going into a formal paper, you would want to write a proper citation for it!]

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.

Before you leave, it would help us if you could Share Your Thoughts about this session. Thanks!

To get to this page on the Internet
  1. Go to the Cabrillo College Library homepage <http://libwww.cabrillo.edu>
  2. Click on Internet Links
  3. Click on English
  4. Scroll down to Course-Related Materials
  5. Click on ENGL2, C. Kore.

C. Kore, T. N. Smalley, 6/05