English 11 (Crowe) Resources--Furman University Libraries

English 11 - Janis Crowe Resources
	Identify and develop your topic Find Background Information Find Books (Review of Searching Techniques) Find Articles Find Websites Evaluate What You've Found Cite What You Found

Identify and Develop Your Topic

State your topic as a question, for example:

Should all states implement graduated driver's license plans for teenage drivers?

Then identify the major concepts and keywords inherent in the question:

States, graduated driver's license, teenagers, laws

Be sure to identify synonyms and related concepts:

Safety, traffic accidents, provisional drivers, beginner drivers, legislation, Insurance Insitute for Highway Saftey

Find Background Information

To find reference books on your topic, do a broad search in ALCUIN, then limit to Location: Reference Coll

do a keyword search for your broad term combined with
"AND (encyclopedia or dictionary)"

Also good to use for background information: CQ Researcher

and: Biography Resource Center

Review of Searching Techniques

Click here for a review of searching techniques

Books Available for Checkout

To find books on your topic, you will probably want to do a keyword search in ALCUIN, the Library's online catalog. ALCUIN supports most of the standard searching techniques we discussed in class, including Boolean Operators (AND, OR), Nesting (using parentheses), and Truncation (using the asterisk *).

Electronic Indexes for Journal and Newspaper Articles and other Information

Lexis-Nexis

Academic Search Premier

Web Searching

Google's Advanced Search

Evaluating What You Find

Evaluating Websites

RDN Virtual Training Suite

Citing What You Found

NoodleBib

This page is maintained by Mary Fairbairn.