The research paper: the overview

I need an overview of my subject -- the BIG picture. I want to understand various points of view about alcoholism.

Maybe I'll follow the disease/habit research question. Maybe I'll find something more interesting along the way. Or maybe my idea isn't a good one. If I don't find the disease/habit angle in the source, I'll need to amend my approach. As I gather different sources I will keep track of each one reviewed by developing a working bibliography. More about that later...

FIRST...I’ll use ChesCat, the online catalog, which lets me search all the books, videos and DVDs in the library.

Use ChesCat to find books, Videos or DVD's. Remember...your primary goal is to get an overview of your subject.

Choose the books, check them out, and make copies of articles in any physical Reference Books. If yours is an online class, the books can be mailed to you.

NEXT... I'll search for electronic Reference books in Gale Virtual Reference Library.

I have the option to search all the electronic books at once by document title or keyword (field specification, again) and an option to search the full text – that’s every word in every article in every book. Since I’m looking for an overview of alcoholism, I choose to search all the books by document title – if the word alcoholism is in the title of an article, I’m sure there will be substantial information on my subject.

Use Gale Virtual Reference Library to find Reference Book articles on your subject. Print out the most useful articles by right clicking on the article and clicking on print.

This is a good place to discuss the difference between PRIMARY and SECONDARY sources.
Let's remember that when we say PRIMARY we refer to ORIGINAL materials or exact copies of
originals such as:

A SECONDARY source refers to an information source that has ANALYSIS or INTERPRETATION of an event or a subject. An example of a this type of source would be a periodical article discussing firearm violence from a periodical such as U. S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT.

Keeping Track... My Working Bibliography
I’ll keep a list of the sources I consult in a Working Bibliography. I’m not committing myself to actually presenting information from all these sources in my paper, but I’m using them, so I’ll list them. I’m sure I’ll find others along the way, and I’ll add them as I find them. One way of creating a Working Bibliography is to use NoodleBib, a subscription database available free through the library. It provides a template, and prompts me for appropriate information.

One of the books I found on ChesCat is Heart of Addiction. I'll use NoodleBib to keep track of the bibliographic information required for the Working Bibliography and possibly my Works Cited Page.

NoodleBib makes it easy to comply with MLA and APA rules for Bibliographies and Works Cited Lists. MLA documentation is usually used for research papers in the Humanities such as literature. APA documentation is generally used for papers dealing with Science or the Social Sciences. To begin my working bibliography I choose which documentation I want and then I enter information about each of my sources (title, author, etc., etc.) and NoodleBib puts in the periods, commas, quotation marks and underlines required by MLA. NoodleBib takes care of spacing and indentation and I can save my list as a WORD document to add to my paper or e-mail to my teacher. If I need more information I can always click on MLA or APA and I will have examples of each published by the Academic Support Center.

As I begin to create my working bibliography....I need to locate and examine information from sources that are opposed to my point of view. By reading up on what the opposition has to say I will know the possible arguments to my line of thinking and be able to better formulate a credible discussion. Who knows--the opposition arguments may be so powerful that I may be forced to change or re-work my own thoughts.