Research

Why Should I Care?

As a student, you have learned how to gather information on all sorts of topics. In college, your game will go up a notch. Your professors have higher expectations about the quality of sources that you should be using in your research papers.

This lesson has 4 parts

Using Internet Sources
Library
Reading Tips
Note-taking

What is Research?

In this lesson, we will cover the skills you need to develop to start finding books and articles. If you want more information about the kinds of documents and sources that are available, their advantages and disadvantages, please read the section of this manual called Sources.

Using Internet Sources

Your first stop should be the well known internet search engines, such as Google Search. Keep in mind there are many other search engines that may find more information than Google.

Big Three

https://www.google.com
www.bing.com
www.yahoo.com

Engines That Don't Track You

https://duckduckgo.com/
https://swisscows.com/en
https://www.wiki.com/
https://archive.org/
https://searx.thegpm.org/

What about Wikipedia?

You should definitely use Wikipedia for your initial research. There are lots of issues to consider, whenever you use a source, and wiki has its pros and cons. More on this later. What you can certainly do is use the Wikipedia page for basic information, key words, and sub-topics. Also check out the references at the bottom of the page, and feel free to click on the links to see the background sources to the wiki article. We don't recommend that you use Wikipedia as a source. More on this later.

What about ChatGPT?

Automated language models, using artificial intelligence computing, are rapidly evolving. Our view is that you should use the bots and ChatGPT tools in the early stages of your research. This allows to clear the brush so that you can see your path better. However, these tools usually don't provide sources, and cannot be used a source in a paper.

What do I do with these links?

As you do more and more online research, you need to take a minute to keep track of your work. A simple trick is to start a new file in a word processor like Microsoft Word, or Google Documents. Paste the links and personal note about the information found on the website. Feel free to remind yourself of gaps to fill, questions to answer, or keywords that you can use in later searches.

My First Background Research Document

Topic: Why was the MacDonald monument in Montreal toppled?

Web sources;

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Macdonald
Wiki page. in French. Has background, photos, sources at the bottom. list of all statues and monuments. More detail on why French don't like him, statue decapitated in 1992 to commemorate the hanging of Louis Riel.

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=6248
Historical biography website. Academic source. Author is J. K. Johnson and P. B. Waite. Lots of info. Read later.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7eLv1OsLxyxs7u3CNxig5E
A song about J. A. MacDonald, on spotify. Have to look into this. Shows support from some people!

Library

Go to the library. Open the door and walk inside. You will find a computer station. Use the library search engine to find books on your topic. The search engine will provide information sheets on each book. This information sheet includes the title of the book, the author(s), the year of publication, the publisher, and a summary of the information in the book. It also has a call number, which allows you to locate the book on the many shelves of the library.

The US Library of Congress Classification

Each library is free to use a classification system for their books. Most academic libraries in Canada use the US Library of Congress Classification (USLCC) system, which sorts all books into 21 main categories, listed under a letter of the alphabet.

For example, Canadian history, is listed in the F category, as part of History of the Americas. Specifically, Canadian history is listed under F 1001 to F 1145.2, within the section for British America.

Source: https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/

Search the McGill Library for a book on the history of hockey

A student is looking for a book on the history of hockey. They use the McGill University Library website to find what's available.

https://www.mcgill.ca/library/

The database is called Sofia. The student searches for ''history of hockey''. This leads to a page with many results. After scrolling down the page, the student decides to click on a book called:

The illustrated history of hockey : the NHL years : stories from The hockey news.
https://mcgill.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/862033781?datasource=library_web&search_field=all_fields&search=true&database=xwc&scope=wz%3A12129&format=Book&clusterResults=off&func=find-b&q=&topLod=0&queryString=history%20of%20hockey&find=Go

The next page provides lots of information about the book, including the call number.

GV
847.8
N3 I45

Most universities have several libraries, so it's important to make sure you know where to go. In this case, the book is in the McLennan-Redpath Library Complex, 3rd Floor.

Once there, the student looks for bookshelves starting with the letter G. They work their way to GV, and then use the following set of numbers, 847.8.

There might be a dozen books under GB 847.8. Once they find that section, they probably can locate the book by scanning the shelf. In doubt, they use the following N3 I45 code, to find the book in question.

TIP - Take lots of books off the shelf!

Since the books are shelved according to topics, the neighbouring documents are probably about the history of hockey as well. The student should certainly take as many books off the shelf as they think can benefit their research.

Reading Tips

Table of contents
- Index
- Bibliography

Note-taking
- Manuscript
- Content Matrix

References and Further Reading

APA style references