The Research Process

Library resources are available through the college web site at www.ccc.commnet.edu.
From OUTSIDE THE COLLEGE select "Off Campus Access to Databases."

The following steps outline a simple and effective strategy for finding information for a research paper and documenting the sources you find. Depending on your topic and your familiarity with the library, you may need to rearrange or recycle these steps. Adapt this outline to your needs.

STEP 1: USE CATALOGS TO FIND BOOKS

Books are a great source for background reading or historical information. Due to their length topics can be explored in more depth. Select a topic that is of interest to you. You may have to begin with a specific search, such as a book on "cloning" and broaden the scope to "medical ethics."

Library Catalog:
Search the library catalog for a book about your career or a book on occupations in general.

STEP 2: JOURNAL ARTICLES

Books often do not contain the most recent information. If you a researching a current topic, magazine or journal articles are a good source of information. Articles can be found in indexes which may be in paper or electronic format. An electronic database is a tool used for finding information on recent topics. All indexes, both electronic and paper have a specific focusand a specific range of years which they cover. You must be aware of a databases focus in order to search for a topic effectively.

Health and Wellness Resource Center
A resource of the Connecticut Digital Library (iCONN) which includes links to a medical encyclopedia, health news, traditional and alternative medical dictionaries, health assessment tools, and links to other health related sites.

Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL)
Provides indexing for over 950 nursing, allied health and health sciences journals. CINAHL Information Systems assembles this database.

Health Source Plus
Authoritative information on health related issues. Full text articles.

Expanded Academic
Also a resource of the Connecticut Digital Library. Includes articles from JAMA and Lancet among others. Selected full text.

STEP 3: NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

ICONN Newstand
Full text access to the Christian Science Monitor, Hartford Courant, New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

STEP 4: FIND WORLD WIDE WEB SOURCES

The Internet is a vast resource for information. It is self publishing, meaning anyone can (and often does) post a website. Different sites exist to inform, sell, advertise, persuade, entertain, and report research. It is up to you to decide if the information is reliable. Use a search engine to begin to locate materials on the Web.

Google
Yahoo

STEP 5: EVALUATE WHAT YOU FIND

Students must learn to evaluate the various sources of information which they find including books, journals and web sites. Authors of scholarly articles are experts in their field of study and generally write articles in one subject area. The authors at Time Magazine write a variety of articles on various subjects. One week they may write an article on AIDS, the next week an article on United States foreign policy. These writers are not usually experts in a particular subject. The Internet is not reliable as there is no editorial control such as we find with books or journals. Special care should be taken when using the Internet for research purposes as there are many web sites of questionable value.

Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages
Distinguishing Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Periodicals

STEP 6: PREPARE A BIBLIOGRAPHY

WHAT IS A BIBLIOGRAPHY?
A BIBLIOGRAPHY is an alphabetic list of all materials (books, journals, newspapers, websites, etc) consulted in the preparation of your assignment written in the form of a citation.
Sample Bibliography

WHAT IS A CITATION?
A CITATION is a reference to an item from which a quotation or information was taken or to which a person is being directed. Includes enough information to locate the original item. For example: a book citation would include author, title, place of publication, publisher and date of publication; an article citation would include author, title, name of periodical, date, and page reference Citations are generally listed at the end of a research paper.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A BIBLIOGRAPHY?
An annotated bibliography may serve a number of purposes such as:
Reviewing the literature on a particular subject
Illustrating the quality of research that you have done
Providing examples of the types of sources available
Acknowledging and giving credit to sources of materials summarized or paraphrased
Showing that you are respectfully borrowing other people's ideas, not stealing them, i.e. to prove that you are not plagiarizing.
Giving readers an opportunity to check out your sources for accuracy.

After you formulate your research question, examine various sources of information, and write your paper, the final product should be uniquely yours. If you decide to use the exact words of an author you have to give that person credit. If you do not give the author appropriate credit you are guilty of plagiarism. Webster's Dictionary defines plagiarism as stealing and passing off the ideas and words of another as one's own. "Ideas or words" can include written or spoken material, statistics, lab results, art work, etc. If you have quoted a published writer or critic in a book, magazine, encyclopedia, or journal; another student at this college or elsewhere; or various Internet sites, you must give appropriate credit in your paper (CCC : A Guide to Research Papers, pages 4-5).

The penalty for plagiarism is determined by the professor teaching the course; more often than not, however, it will involve failure for the paper and it could mean failure for the entire course. Repeated infractions of this essential principle of academic responsibility could result in expulsion from the college. Penalties published in Capital's Student Handbook are subject to guidelines determined by the Board of Trustees of Connecticut Community Colleges (CCC : a Guide to Research Papers, pages 4-5).

Capital's Guide to Research Papers MLA Format and APA Format give you information concerning gathering materials and documenting your work in the proper format. The guide gives you examples of citing books, encyclopedia articles, journals, newspapers, interviews, audio-visual materials and radio or television broadcasts. Both printed and electronic sources are covered. A print version of the MLA Guide is available in the library.