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Research Steps

  1. Get a topic, either assigned from your professor or of your own choosing. Eventually this should take the form of a research question, ie, "What is the impact of...," "How did...change..."
  2. Look in general reference resources, such as Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, to get background information. Dates, keywords, important people or ideas will be important as you start to use more subject specific sources and databases.
  3. Look at subject specific reference resources. These will cover your subject in more detail and depth and will include useful bibliographies. For Television or Popular Culture topics, this would include Television Characters or The Greenwood Guide to American Popular Culture.
  4. Search the library catalog using keywords and terms learned from the reference resources. Look for call number areas and subject headings that cover your topic.
  5. Search in general and subject specific databases for journal articles and book chapters. ATLA and Communication and Mass Media Completeare two important databases.
  6. After you have a good background on your topic, use scholarly websites such as Voice of the Shuttle to search for appropriate web resources.

Notes on the Research Process

Remember to write down bibliographic information as you go so that you don't have to go back to find it when you are writing your paper.

This is an interdisciplinary topic, you may need to look outside the Religion subject area to find sources. English, history, art, communication, psychology and sociology may all be useful areas for research.

Check the bibliographies in all your sources for additional resources.

You may need to broaden or narrow your topic depending on how much and what type of information you find as you research.

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Online Catalog

Finding Books

Use the online catalog to locate materials in the library on your topic. Search the catalog by author or title in the basic search tab, or by keyword or phrases in the guided keyword search tab.

You will be using resources from a variety of subject areas for this course. The following are Library of Congress Call Number sections that will be useful in located the books you need:

Each book record in the online catalog also contains Library of Congress Subject Headings, which can help you locate books on a similar topic. Click on the subject heading in the online catalog to go to a list of books that share that subject heading. Some examples are:

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Reference Resources

Use Reference Resources to get background information on a time period, event, person, theme or terminology. Many of these sources include bibliographies which list additional books and journal articles that would be useful for further research on the topic. All Reference materials are shelved on Wilson 4 and cannot be checked out. These are a few selections from the available resources:

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Electronic Databases

Finding Journal Articles

Use electronic databases to find journal articles, book chapters and reviews. The library has over 200 databases for finding journal articles. In the left sidebar, expand the Subject List under Arts and Humanities to find databases relevent to Religion or Literary Criticism, or Social Sciences to find Communication resources.

Remember, these databases include articles from scholarly journals, magazines and newspapers. If your professor requires that you use scholarly journal articles for your project, take a look at this checklist to see if your articles are appropriate! When in doubt, ASK your professor or a librarian!

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Locating Journals in the Library

Find out if the Library subscribes to the journal you need through the journals page. If we subscribe to the journal, the catalog will display information regarding print and/or electronic versions of the journal. Current issues are shelved in the Periodicals Room by section number. Older issues are assigned a call number and are shelved in the stacks.

Note: If the library catalog states that an item is in Off-Site Shelving, ask for it at the Circulation Desk.

Remember, if we do not have the particular book or journal article you're looking for, we may be able to get it from another library through interlibrary loan.

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Websites

After you have consulted books and journal articles, you may also want to use web resources. Take a look at Evaluating Web Resources as you evalute the websites you find. These sites contain reliable information:

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Need Help?

Good luck in your search! If you are not finding enough information or have any questions, ASK:

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