Library Research Tips for English 306: Kathy Leslie, Professor

Librarian: Marcia Henry

Welcome, Professor Leslie's class, English 306 .   You can email me at mhenry@csun.edu, reach me on AOL Instant messenger at marcia24017 or call me at 818.677.3012.

The goals of the library sessions are:

• Learn How to do Library and Internet research: determine information need, choose best resources, develop a search strategy, understand keyword and subject searching, how to use boolean operators and truncation  symbols, how to cite sources, and more.
• Learn how to use the Library Catalog and the CSUN List of Electronic Journals to find books and journals on your topic.  
• Learn how to distinguish between scholarly articles, magazines and newspapers.
• Understand there are multisubject databases as well as subject specific databases, for example
  • Health Reference Center (Thomson Gale) -indexes popular and scholarly resources. Offers help on how to cite and when full text article is not available, the Find Text link helps you identify if CSUN owns the article in another database.
  • Academic Search Elite (EBSCOHost)
  • InfoTRAC PowerSearch (all Thomson Gale databases)
  • Wilson OmniFile Full Text Mega (Wilsonweb)
  • Proquest databases and newspapers
• Learn about PubMed, the largest index to the medical literature, CSUN's PubMed URL is: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?otool=cacsunlib
• MedlinePlus is a freely available internet website which offers good, authoritative, health information from the world's largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine. MedlinePlus has extensive information from the National Institutes of Health and other trusted sources on over 700 diseases and conditions. MedlinePlus can be bookmarked at the URL: http://www.medlineplus.gov.

Avoid plagiarism -learn how to find help citing your sources using MLA or APA

Remember to cite not only direct quotes, but also other people's ideas. If you paraphrase something, changing a few words to make it sound less like a direct quote, you still have to cite it. If you are uncertain, it is better to cite a source than to be accused of plagiarism for not citing something you should have. In print in the library you can consult Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003. [Reserve Room and Reference Room LB2369 .G53] 2003 and Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001. [Reference Rm. ,Reserve Rm. BF76.7 .P83 2001] .

On the web:

• MLA Style Samples http://library.csun.edu/Research_Assistance/MLAstyle.htm
  
• APA Style Samples http://library.csun.edu/Research_Assistance/APAstyle.html

Databases may also offer help in citing.

• Proquest databases -need to mark the records first, then look at My Research folder tab, choose Create your bibliography
• Gale Thomson databases -follow the record's "How to cite" link