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cjustice
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Posted: Wed Nov 1st, 2006 06:31 am |
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i'm doing a paper on infanticide, however as much as i'd love to do my research all online, the teacher wants most of my research in offline form. i've been checking the local library but finding only smaller bits and pieces on the topic in books and magazines with broader ranges of topics in them would you happen to know of any decent books and or magazines which focus heavily on this topic?
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cjustice
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Posted: Wed Nov 1st, 2006 06:31 am |
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Great question because there are a number of issues to look at. First, in looking at your profile you are attending an undergraduate course at a local college. What your professor means by “offline” research and “online” research is a typical misunderstanding with undergraduate students. If you were my student, say in my current ethics course, I would explain to you that I want you to use “online” resources because I want to increase your information and technology literacy skills. What your professor probably really means is they want you to understand and explore the difference between commercial, practitioner and academic information. Commerical is fairly clear – news services and sources like wikipedia. If information was ranked, these sources are third tier, not the best.
Here on some really good links on evaluating web-based resources:
http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html
http://library.sonoma.edu/research/subject/eval.html
http://library.usm.maine.edu/research/researchguides/webevaluating.html
Note that the websites are all “edu” or educational. And, they are libraries within universities. Okay, so what can you use wikipedia for. The wik is a great place to remind yourself of what you are looking for. As a researcher and a writer I use it all the time. As an example, a colleage recommended I use Structural Equation Modeling for a research project. Well, I remember studying that, but damn, it went out the window after the test. So, I wik’d it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_equation_modeling
Now, I am not going to cite or use that definition, but a quick read and I am reminded of what it is about and where I should look for better information. So, wiking your topic we get:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide
We get a good, non-academic overview and a few clues. Another quick trick is to type into google, - define: infanticide. Note that seven or eight definitions come up, giving us further clues. Now onto sources.
Your college subscribes to either (or both) Proquest or EBSCOHost. These are online versions of print journals. Peer reviewed, academic journals are top tier sources. Go to your colleges library page. There is likely a log in for the library. Look for “research databases” or something like that. When you get there, look for either of these services. When you use them, the most important thing is to look for the boxes that say “full text” and “peer reviewed” this will give you only full reprints or online versions of academic sources. Your professor will accept this as first class research. The only problem, for you, is the stuff is dense and hard to read, huh?
That brings in the middle tier – practitioner oriented material. Practitioners, the people who do the job, want only the best information. A good practitioner article is written by an expert and/or a researcher who writes in plain language so that it is more understandable my the unwashed masses. For us CJ people, a good online place to start is the National Criminal Justice Referral Service at http://www.ncjrs.gov/
At that site, on the top right hand corner is a search box….try infanticide. You will see that four full text documents on homicide trends pops up. Well, that will tell you how many and how the suspects were. But, you also get a listing of over 100 abstracts on the subject…pretty interesting stuff. You can take those titles, go back to proquest or ebscohost and probably find the articles. OR, try searching the NCJRS for “child homicide” A cool 100 full text, academically sound (for an undergrad) articles.
A final tip. Most colleges and libraries subscribe to “ask a Liberian or chat with a librarian service.” Try asking them. You will find that most services are 24 hours a day (there is someone sitting in a cubicle waiting for your question) and they will research for you and actually email you articles.
Good luck.
REF
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casmith245
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Posted: Thu Nov 2nd, 2006 06:24 am |
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Wikipedia is not a very dependable sourse since anyone can add on to their pages all they need is an account ( NOT EVERYTHING ON THE NET IS REAL OH NO) so i mostly use .EDU sites to do my research.
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