CONDUCTING RESEARCH

 

There will be times in this course when you must conduct research to complete an assignment.  In addition to properly acknowledging sources, it is important that you select quality sources and consider the reliability of the sources you use.  While Wikipedia may be convenient, it is not an appropriate academic source.  For that matter, in a senior university level course, any encyclopedia is really not an appropriate source.  Instead you should be accessing academic journals found in the online databases, primary documents found either in university/municipal/company archives or in online collections, or historical monographs (a.k.a. books written by historians!)  Think in terms of OVPL whenever you consider using a source.  Is it reliable, authoritative, and relevant enough to base YOUR argument on it?

 

Click on the link below to go to a tutorial on assessing sources.

http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/webevaluation/

 

So how do you find more relevant material?  Here is a great tutorial on using search engines to find online material:

http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/websearching/

 

If you are having problems getting started with research, this final presentation from Acadia University may be helpful.  It outlines the research process:

http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/research/

 

Here are some of the research resources available to you through our own library:

CHCI’s Online Catalogue http://ipac1.wrdsb.on.ca/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1032888550937.855&profile=chc&logout=true&startover=true#focus

WRDSB Virtual Library Portal (Databases) http://virtuallibrary.wrdsb.on.ca/

Secondary One-Stop Portal (Databases for high school research) http://virtuallibrary.wrdsb.on.ca/secondary_onestop.html

History Sourcebooks( A Collection of subject organized primary documents courtesy of Fordham University) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/

Avalon Project (Yale University’s collection of documents on law, history and diplomacy) http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm

CHCI History Resource Links http://chci.wrdsb.on.ca/library/reshist.htm

 

 

HAPPY RESEARCHING!!