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

Internet Sources
Library Books
Library Articles
Quick Reading

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.

''How many sources do I need?''

Students always want to know how many sources they need. The truth is, there is not an easy answer to this question. If you find great sources, you may not need that many to produce a great paper. However, covering the minimum requirement usually does not ensure success.

As a rule of thumb, try to find at least three times more sources, than what is being asked for. You probably will not use them all. But you should be going through, and rather quickly, a large number of documents to find the ones that will help you write a great paper. We have rarely heard of students who have been penalized for having used too many sources.

''What am I looking for?''

In the beginning, you need to identify the basics, such as keywords. These are short expressions that come up in the text you are looking for. For example, if you are researching a paper on the history of hockey, all of the following keywords should be the object of your search efforts:

Use your first basic searches to find the relevant keywords to your topic, and then search them all.

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

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, find 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. Talks about Grits and Tories... need to check that.

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 Books

Go to the library. Open the door and walk inside. You can find books by simply walking through the isles, and sliding a book off its shelf. You will also find a computer station. Libraries have their own online search engines, which you can use, even if you are not at the library. The weblink to your school's library is usually on the main webpage of the college website.

Of course you can also start the search online from outside the library. Most college and university libraries are now associated to World Catalogue, which is operated by a non-profit cooperative called OCLC. You can search WorldCat from your computer, and it will list all of the libraries located near you that hold the book you are looking for.

https://www.worldcat.org/

You can also use online search engines from other databases, or even from bookstores. Consider the ones below.

Articles
https://scholar.google.com/
https://doaj.org/

Books
https://www.goodreads.com/
https://www.amazon.ca/
https://openlibrary.org/
https://www.thriftbooks.com/
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/

Books in French
https://www.leslibraires.ca/
https://www.banq.qc.ca/livres/

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, each 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 same topic as well. The student should certainly take as many books off the shelf as they think can benefit their research.

Library Periodicals

When searching on the library website, you might find an article. This is a text published in a periodical, such as a magazine, a newspaper, or an academic journal. These articles are distributed through media databases, such as EbscoHost, JStor, Academic Search Premier, or Érudit for francophone journals. You don't need to cite the database, they only distribute material. You should get to know them, because they may have specialties.

If the article is interesting, make a note of it in your research document. Then SAVE THE PDF of the whole text on your computer!

If you don't have access to the PDF, you will have to get the article from the physical copy of the periodical. Use the online library search engine to find the call number, the issue number, and the year of publication, and take a note of them. When you go to the library, look for the periodicals section. Once you find the publication, you'll have to leaf through to find the article. Use the table of contents to locate the article. You can scan the article as a PDF for future reference, or make photocopies.

Academic libraries subscribe to several recurring publications, which are called periodicals. These publications can be published at various frequencies in the year.

Periods Matter

Periodicity	Publication frequency	Example
Annual	Once a year	IKEA catalogue, The Himalayan Journal
Bi-annual	Twice a year, every 6 months	Studies on Asia (journal), Achilles Heel (magazine)
Quarterly	Four times a year, every 3 months	Quarterly Journal of Political Science
Monthly	Twelve times a year, every month	Nature Biomedical Engineering (journal)
Bi-monthly	24 times a year, every two weeks	Ancient Egypt (magazine), Journal of Mental Health
Weekly	52 times a year, every week	Us Weekly (magazine), The Journal of Neuroscience
Daily	365 times a year, every day	The Globe and Mail (newspaper), The Gazette (newspaper)

Periodicals come in many forms, such as newspapers, magazines and academic journals, which cater to different audiences and have very different means of operation and sales. Consult the Sources section of the manual to read more about these different types of information media.

Quick Reading

Once you have all of your sources gathered up, you will need to find and extract information out of them. You probably need a comfortable chair, and should not be pressed for time. However, there are tricks to do this quickly and efficiently.

The main trick here is to sort books into two piles: Keep for later, and Discard. You don't need to read the whole book right now. We don't want you breaking your back with a heavy backpack.

Table of Contents

When you open a book, find the Table of Contents. Find a chapter that catches your eye, that piques your curiosity. Flip right into the chapter and read from one of the pages. Make notes of anything interesting. If you are still reading after a few minutes, put the book into the Keep for later pile. In the Anglosphere, the Table of Contents is located in the beginning of the book. In the Francosphere, it is located at the end (Table des matières).

Index

Many books have an Index, which is an alphabetical list of important terms WITH the page numbers were they show up in the text. This is really useful if you have a particular keyword, a name, or a place, that you are researching.

Bibliography

Many books and articles have a bibliography, or a list of references. This is a gold mine. It is perfectly acceptable to search for all the books and articles listed in the first bibliography that you find. This is even expected.

Once you get used to library research, you will organize your search more strategically. If you can find a great magazine article, that lays out the main issues, and identifies the main agents involved in the topic, you have covered alot of ground. Then, if you find a great book, with an extensive bibliography, you don't need to mindlessly search the internet anymore. You can find the most important documents from this list.

CTRL-F

For PDF articles, and webpages, use the FIND function on your browser, or in Adobe PDF reader. Type CTRL-F to activate the FIND search bar. Type the word you are searching, and the browser will show you each of its occurrences in the text.

References and Further Reading

US Library of Congress. (2023). Library of Congress Classification Outline. US Government. https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/