Overview

Section 1 – Types of Information Sources

This section covers types of information sources you can use for your research paper.  When you have completed this section you should be able to…

• identify a variety of information sources
• distinguish between popular and scholarly periodicals
• identify characteristics of information on the Web
• identify characteristics of library resources

Section 2 – Constructing Search Queries

In this section you will learn how to identify subject terms and/or keywords to search your topic.  When you have completed this section you should be able to…

• write a topic question or sentence
• identify keywords for a topic
• use connectors and truncation in constructing a search
• understand the difference between keyword and subject searching

Section 3 – Finding Books

This section covers how to search a library catalog.  When you have completed this section you should be able to:

• recognize that a library catalog contains more than books
• find books on a topic using the Advanced search
• find books by title, author, or subject heading
• read a call number and use it to find items in the library

Section 4 – Finding Articles

This section covers how to use article indexes to identify articles on a subject.  After completing this section you should be able to:

• distinguish between popular and scholarly periodicals
• choose an article index appropriate to your information need
• use it to identify an article on a topic

Section 5 – Using the Web

When you have completed this section, you should be able to:

• understand the organization of the Internet
• identify the major types of Web sites
• use search engines and metasearch engines to search the Web
• interpret and evaluate Web search engine results

Section 6 – Citing Sources

This section covers citing sources, plagiarism, and copyright.  When you have completed this section, you should be able to:

• recognize the different parts of a citation
• describe when to cite sources used in your work
• list ways to avoid plagiarism
• understand the reasons for copyright

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