http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/anth142js.html

Research Skills and Techniques: Beyond Google Research Strategies Library and Information Resources: CU Library Gateway Reference Resources CU Library Catalog Find It Internet Search Engines Processing Information: Evaluating Sources Citing Sources Writing Workshop Answering your questions: Help

Research Skills and Techniques:

Where do you get your Information?

The Web can provide excellent starting places to do your research.

But if you are only using Google and Wikipedia to find your information, you may not be finding all of the information that is available on your topic. Especially if you are being asked to do scholarly research.

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Research Strategy Tutorial 1. Choose your topic 2. Find background information 3. Find books on your topic 4. Find articles 5. Find relevant web sites 6. Evaluate your sources 7. Cite your sources See the following sites to learn more about how to find information and how to do scholarly research in a large academic library: Guide to Library Research at Cornell Research Strategy: The Seven Steps of the Research Process Database Searching Tips Search Strategies Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT (Bowling Green State University Libraries) Interpreting Your Search Results How to Interpret Search Results (Humboldt State University Library) Interpreting Citations Tutorial (University of Missouri-St. Louis.) Introduction to the components of journal citations.

AND Operator OR Operator NOT Operator

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Library and Information Resources:

The Cornell University Library Gateway is the Library's homepage on the World Wide Web. It is the Library's interface for connecting Cornell faculty, students, and staff to our digital and print collections.

Use the Gateway to:

• Connect to our digital library--thousands of databases, e-books, e-journals, online exhibits, and collections.
• Navigate the physical library--20 libraries, 7.5 million books, maps, microforms, and media.
  • Map of the Libraries
• Learn more about the information Services the Library provides to connect you with the information you need.
• Contact our knowledgeable staff who are here to assist you with any questions you have.

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Background resources like encyclopedias and dictionaries will help you understand the broader context of your research and tell you in general terms what is known about your topic.

Use these Reference databases to find and access articles in a variety of encyclopedias and subject dictionaries: Selected Reference sources for your class Cayton, Mary Kupiec, ed. Encyclopedia of American Social History. 3 vols. New York: Scribner's, 1992. Uris Library Reference HN 57 .E56 1992; also Olin Library Reference This 3-volume encyclopedia uses the scholarship of historians, sociologists, geographers and anthropologists to present various aspects of American social history, including periods of social change, patterns of everyday life, family history and science, medicine and technology. See Vol. 2 for essays on American Indians of the East and American Indians of the West. Davis, Mary B. ed. Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub., 1994. Uris Library Reference E76.2 .N26 1994 and Mann Library Reference E76.2 .N26x 1994 Covers important aspects of Native American life in the U.S. during the 20th Century. Signed articles are written by historians, anthropologists and other specialists, who represent a wide range on the political spectrum. More than half of the articles are devoted to 20th century Native nations. Sturtevant, William C.,general editor. Handbook of North American Indians. 20 vols. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1978- . Uris Library Reference E77 .H23 and Olin Reference E77 .H23 1978+ A 20-volume encyclopedia of North American Indians being published over an extended period of time. Summarizes knowledge of the history and the cultures of all North American Indians and Eskimos, from the earliest prehistoric times to the present, including those peoples from America north of Meso-America including a large part of northern Mexico, all of the continental United States, Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Siberia. Each volume is independent of the other volumes and contains separate chapters on all the tribes within a geographic area, and includes illustrations, bibliographies, and an index. Waldman, Carl. Atlas of the North American Indian. Rev. ed. New York: Facts On File, 2000. Uris Library Reference E77 .W195 2000 Combining clear, informative text with a wealth of maps and illustrations, this unique resource on American Indians offers comprehensive coverage in a single volume. History, culture, languages, and lifeways of American Indian groups across North America are included. Updated and revised from the 1985 edition. Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment. Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, 2001- . This database, assembled from hundreds of primary sources, documents the relationships among peoples and with the environment in North America from 1534 to 1850. The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. It includes works by American Indians as well as a wide range of Europeans...The database includes prints, drawings, paintings, maps, bibliographies, letters, photographs, and original facsimile pages all searchable by standardized vocabulary. For additional Reference sources See the General Interest and Reference section of Find It! to connect to more online Reference resources. Go to Olin & Uris Libraries Subject Guides or the Library Gateway's Research & Subject Guides for listings of subject bibliographies with resources selected by Library staff. Library Research Guide for American Indian Studies Selected Resources in Anthropology Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Collections: American Indian History & Culture Online exhibition: Vanished Worlds, Enduring People: Cornell University Library's Native American Collection Anthropologists & Native Americans

The Cornell University Library Catalog is a database that contains records for materials held in 19 of the 20 of libraries that collectively comprise the Cornell University Library. The Weill Cornell Medical Library, located in New York City, has a separate catalog.

Use the Library Catalog to:

• Find records for books, journals, maps, government documents, DVDs, databases, networked resources (e-journals, e-books, digital collections), sound recordings, etc.
  • Obtain call numbers to locate physical materials. (books, print journals, Reserve items, DVDs, etc.)
  • Note any special locations. (Periodicals Reading Room, Reserve, Oversize shelves, etc.)
  • Check dates and volume numbers to see what issues we have in our holdings.

• Link to full text digital materials from their catalog records.

This symbol tells you that a resource is either available full text online or that an online Table of Contents exists for the material.

Finding the books on the shelves

Services linked from the Library Catalog

• MyLibrary Customized services for managing your Library account, renewing materials, and organizing and managing information.

• Requesting Items (Recalls, Library Annex, Library to Library Book Delivery, Borrow Direct, Interlibrary Loan, and MyDocumentDelivery)

• Interlibrary Services Borrow materials--books, journal articles, DVDs, etc.--from other libraries.

• Borrow Direct Specialized rapid interlibrary loan for BOOKS.

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Article Search Options:

• Use the Quick search to do a simple search from a set of pre-selected databases, or to find a specific database for in-depth searching.

• Use the Subject Area search to find articles in one or more databases in a particular subject area.

• For more precise searching, click the Advanced Search link on any of the subject area lists.

Database Search Options:

• SEARCH for databases with the Quick search form or the Advanced Search form on any of the subject area lists to find specific databases for in-depth searching.

• BROWSE for databases by subject. Use the Subject Area search or the A-Z List of Databases to find one or more databases in a particular subject area.

Recommended databases:

• Multidisciplinary
  • Research Library (ProQuest). Ann Arbor: Bell & Howell, 1986- .

    Research Library indexes and abstracts an extensive number of general interest magazines, scholarly journals, and newspapers in the social sciences, humanities and sciences. Full text of many articles is provided.

    Click on the Databases Selected link to select and search other ProQuest databases, including a selection of Historical Databases:
    

    • APS Online (American Periodicals Series) 1740-1900
    • ProQuest Historial Newspapers
      
      • New York Times 1851-2002
      • Wall Street Journal 1889-1989
      • Washington Post 1877-1989

    • Also try Academic Source Premier and LexisNexis Academic.

• Specialized Subject
  • AnthroSource. New York: Modern Language Association, 1963- .

    Current issues of Association journals and bulletins, plus searchable archived issues of all the Association's publications, <1888-2003>. Covers political, medical, cultural, and legal anthropology; ethnology; education; humanism; archaeology; nutrition; gender issues; and linguistics.

  • Bibliography of Native North Americans. Ipswich, MA: EBSCO, 199?- .

    Bibliography of Native North Americans (BNNA) is a bibliographic database covering all aspects of native North American culture, history, and life. This resource covers a wide range of topics including archaeology, multicultural relations, gaming, governance, legend, and literacy. BNNA contains more than 80,000 citations for books, essays, journal articles, and government documents of the United States and Canada. Dates of coverage for included content range from the sixteenth century to the present.

• e-Journal Collections
  • JSTOR New York, NY: JSTOR, c1996-.

    JSTOR is a fully-searchable database containing the back issues of several hundred scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, music, ecology and botany, business and other fields.

  • Project Muse Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, c1995- .

    Project Muse provides access to the full text of journals covering literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, and others.

  • Search or browse the 26,000+ e-Journals licensed by the Cornell University Library.

• Image

  Finding Images: Cornell's Visual Resources TASI: Finding Images Online

  Rabbit Proof Fence YouTube video

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Know better.

• Use the web in an academic way.
  • Look for bibliographies. (e.g. Wikipedia Reference lists)
  • Use keywords from the sites that you find to create refined searches for more specific information. Try those keywords in Library databases, including the Library Catalog.

• Find web resources that provide scholarly information.
  

  Look for Get it! Cornell links to access full text articles from Google Scholar.

  Using Google Scholar to locate Cornell University Library resources

• Try your searches in a variety of Search Engines. Each searches the web for information differently.

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Processing Information

Be Critical. Analyze and evaluate your search results. Have you found the most authoritative, accurate, objective, up-to-date, scholarly information available on your research topic?

• Why critical thinking?

• How to Critically Analyze Information Sources lists some of the critical questions you should ask when you consider the appropriateness of a particular book, article, media resource, or Web site for your research.

• Distinguishing Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Periodicals: A Checklist of Criteria shows how to evaluate periodicals by looking at their format, intended audience, and appearance.

• Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools lists ways to analyze the Web sites you find.

• See Evaluating Web Resources for additional information.

• Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites offers a table of suggestions.

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Give credit where credit is due.

By properly citing the sources you use in your research projects you are both identifying the resources that you used to complete your work and you are formally acknowledging the authors or creators of those resources. This allows others to find what you have found and to verify your research.

Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity

Here is information about APA citation style: