wsdb 291

library research workshop

Fall 2024

TO FIND THESE SLIDES & MORE:

Google:  women's studies concordia library

your subject librarian: susie.breier@concordia.ca

ZOOM office hours most Tuesdays 3-5, or by appointment

Text

ZOOM & H-1132 office hours: 

Tuesdays

3:30-5:30 pm

OR by appointment

AskUs Desk
Webster LB building:
 

most Tuesdays 1-3

most Fridays 4-5

AskSusie, every Tuesday 3:30-5:30 pm, ask any question under the sun about research or the library

pronouns: she/her/elle

WHERE/HOW CAN

YOU FIND ME? 

on my women's studies

 SUBJECT GUIDE

 

google:
women's studies concordia library

OR.....

under women's studies see:

today's CONTEXT

You are about to submit a PROPOSAL for your final TERM PAPER.  Your guidelines tell you to:

  • "Attach a preliminary BIBLIOGRAPHY of 3-5 peer-reviewed SCHOLARLY articles or books that seem relevant to your interpretive problem..."
     
  • locate  "...DISAGREEMENTS among scholars, GAPS in knowledge"
     
  • follow customary scholarly CITATION format (ie MLA or APA) ...and carefully acknowledge your sources."

What do YOU want to cover today?

tell me here:

OUR AGENDA

BUT FIRST....

NEED HELP WITH ANY OF THE

AGENDA ITEMS I PROPOSED?

 ask questions - GET HELP:

icon of person asking a question
speech bubble icon for chat
email icon
phone icon

 

at the AskUs desk

 

via chat

 

via email

 

by phone

orange "chat with us" icon from the library web site pages

writing assistance at the library and the university

screenshot of writing assistance info at Webster:  Tuesdays 12 to 3 pm near the AskUs Desk

TUESDAYS

Need assistance beyond a quick chat,
and have a bit of time to plan?

your subject librarian: susie.breier@concordia.ca

ZOOM office hours most Tuesdays 3-5, or by appointment

Text

ZOOM & H-1132 office hours: most Tuesdays

3:30-5:30 pm

OR by appointment

AskUs Desk
Webster LB building:
 

most Tuesdays 1-3

most Fridays 4-5

AskSusie, every Tuesday 3:30-5:30 pm, ask any question under the sun about research or the library

pronouns: she/her/elle

Text

SimoNe de Beauvoir Institute

Feminist library & Learning Centre

ER building, 2155 Guy Street, 6th floor

monday-thursday 9 am - 9pm +  friDAY 9 AM - 5PM

contact: isabelle.lamoureux@concordia.ca

 see also:

OUR Agenda

accessing resources at concordia & beyond

Search for library books, ebooks, articles and films

what if the library doesn't have it ONLINE?

request a book and pick it up later....

or use the call number and locate button to find it

what if the library DOESN'T have it at all?

search for it in any library worldwide:

... and simply request it!

but you CAN'T borrow ebooks from other libraries!!

find scholarly articles or books

related to your topic / problem

my tentative topic: 

citational politics

I recently encountered compelling works by scholars Max Liboiron, Eve Tuck and Katherine McKittrick relating to citational justice politics in feminist, anti-colonial and black studies scholarship, as well as in the Cite Black Women movement...

quotations/ideas from these scholars of interest to me include:   

This is a challenge for all of us:  Reflect on the way you approach referencing the work of others in your own writing, presenting and thinking. Whose work do you build on to make arguments ... Who are you citing, and why do you cite them (and not others)?

Eve Tuck, K. Wayne Yang, Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández,"Citation Practices" Critical Ethnic Studies, April 2015

...[B]ibliographies and endnotes and references and sources are alternative stories that can, in the most generous sense, centralize the practice of sharing ideas about liberation and resistance and writing against racial and sexual violence. 

Katherine McKittrick,"Footnotes (Books and Papers Scattered about the Floor)", Dear Science and Other Stories,2021

but also:

… I do not believe that citation, as a practice that includes or excludes, is useful. I am not interested in citations as quotable value. 

Katherine McKittrick,"Footnotes (Books and Papers Scattered about the Floor)", Dear Science and Other Stories,2021

 

I have spent most of my career in education trying to convince non-Indigenous people to read Indigenous people.

Now …. unsurprisingly surprised by how demonstratively settlerish their reading is.
....
I forgot that people read extractively, for discovery….

 

I forgot that all these years of relation between settler and Indigenous people set up settlers to be terrible readers of Indigenous work.

Eve Tuck @tuckeve Oct. 8, 2017 "To Watch the White Settlers"
  • When and how do citational justice politics, intended as a form of resistance, become tools  of prescription or invasive appropriation and extraction instead?
     
  • How do these approaches to citation intersect (or not) with seminal 21st century feminist writings by authors such as bell hooks (feminist theory from margin to center) or Audre Lorde (dismantling the master's house)?
     
  •  

my tentative question/problem

 

This will take SEVERAL SEARCHES to explore...

to find scholarly articles or books

related to this topic / problem
(or to
YOURs)

 

where wouldyou search?

tELL your CLASSMATES

Search for library books, ebooks, articles and films

 but go beyond sofia to search for topics

reminders:

  • Use the readings, authors and literature you already know...
     
  • and explore those to the fullest!
     
  • Use Google (or your favourite tool) to get smarter about your topic
     
  • and THEN: 

Women's STUDIES databases

SEARCH EXAMPLE

("citation* politics" OR "citation* justice" OR "citation* practices" OR "politics of citation")
AND
(feminis* OR black OR indigenous OR BIPOC OR justice OR resist* OR gender*)

TIP WHAT IT DOES EXAMPLE

AND

 
Combines concepts. Limits how many results your search produces
 

police
AND
violence
OR

 
Allows for synonyms or alternative terms. Increases the number or results your search produces.
 
violence OR brutality
 
*

 
Near the end of a word, retrieves all words that start with the letters entered. Increases the number of results a search produces Canad*
(retrieves Canada, Canadian)
 
“ ” For two words or more, search for an exact phrase only, rather than each keyword separately. Limits how many results your search produces “systemic racism”
(retrieves systemic racism, but not systemic oppression related to racism)

search tips & tricks
 standard library article databases

but aLSO:

a simpler  search example:

now how can you access / download the articles you find?

search EXAMPLE:

I want to find  articles that engage with (ie that cite) bell hook's book: Feminist theory: from margin to center, but that also discuss citational politics/practices

scholarly conversations in google scholar

citational politics OR practices

findit@concordia TIP:

scholarly / Peer-reviewed / academic

In some Library Databases you can use a checkbox:

TEST YOURSELF:

is it academic / scholarly /

peer-reviewed?

which one(s) is/are scholarly?

which one(s) is/are scholarly?

This is a resource aimed at practitioners and researchers, but it is not written by an academic describing a research study or a theoretical framework. Though it casually refers to other studies, it does not seriously engage with other academic research and has NO BIBLIOGRAPHY!

This IS an academic/scholarly/
peer-reviewed article, published in a peer-reviewed journal. Important clues: academic language, author draws on scholarly theories and outlines their own. Long BIBLIOGRAPHY of references.

How to properly enter your KEYWORDS in Library Databases

search strategies

TIP WHAT IT DOES EXAMPLE

AND

 
Combines concepts. Limits how many results your search produces
 

police
AND
violence
OR

 
Allows for synonyms or alternative terms. Increases the number or results your search produces.
 
violence OR brutality
 
*

 
Near the end of a word, retrieves all words that start with the letters entered. Increases the number of results a search produces Canad*
(retrieves Canada, Canadian)
 
“ ” For two words or more, search for an exact phrase only, rather than each keyword separately. Limits how many results your search produces “systemic racism”
(retrieves systemic racism, but not systemic oppression related to racism)

search tips & tricks
 standard library article databases

google scholar strategies:

  • use OR for alternative terms
     
  • use quotation marks " " for phrases
     
  • DON'T use AND (it is implied)
     
  • DON'T use * ( happens automatically)

in ebsco article databases:

in google scholar:

("citation* politics" OR "citation* practices" OR "politics of citation")

AND

(feminis* OR black OR indigenous OR BIPOC OR justice OR resist* OR gender*)

("citational politics" OR "citation practices" OR "politics of citation") (feminism OR black OR indigenous OR BIPOC OR justice OR resistance OR gender)

example of a keyword

combination in socindex

search tips & tricks for
library article databases

boolean operators, truncation, phrase searching:

 another search example in this handout:

(YouTube, 7 mins)

Developing your search strategy: VIDEO

search strategy tip: keywords are not the only thing to think about!

Picking your topic takes strategy too

YouTube video, 3 mins

formatting referencES:

Zotero

& citation guides

what's the simplest way to  properly cite?

it depends.

Start by picking a citation style 

and consulting a:

use a citation style guides:

typical examples:

in-text citations (APA style)

Hakkinen and Akrami (2014) found that “individuals are receptive to climate change communications, regardless of ideological position” (p. 65).

Research shows that people from any ideological background are open to hearing about climate change (Hakkinen & Akrami, 2014).

 

typical examples:

Bibliography (APA style)

example of a list of References. see link below for accesible version: https://onedrive.live.com/View.aspx?resid=9E1D26621EA2350E!922&wdEmbedFS=1&wdo=2&authkey=!ACb0W46RTUEyCPk

see this sample paper with a reference list on p. 17 

What about

automatic citation tools

instead of style guides ?

automatic citation tools

Quick Citation Generators
(for example MyBib, Citation Machine, or  those provided within databases like EBSCO, Google Scholar, Sofia)

* Make sure to  double check your generated citations - they are not always correct! Use the Library's APA citation style guides to make sure all the required elements of the citation are present and correctly formatted.

automatic citation tools

screenshot formgoogle scholar with 3 search hits, with the "cite" link highlighted

Concordia Library provides support for Zotero.

automatic citation tools

Citation Management SOFTWARE
(for example RefWorks, Mendeley, EndNote, Zotero....)

primary sources

bonus material

primary source

=
 a source that provides first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic

=

the object(s) of your study

=

can be almost anything, depending on the CONTEXT!

what is a primary source?

historical

can be PRIMARY sources?

typical primary sources 

  • newspaper articles
  • diaries
  • blogs, tweets & other social media posts
  • films / videos
  • court transcripts
  • laws, bills, government publications
  • NGO reports

locating primary sources will depend on what kind you are seeking, but see other library subject guides, such as:

WSDB 291 (Winter 2024)

By susie breier

WSDB 291 (Winter 2024)

Library Workshop slides for WSDB 291 Contemporary Issues in Women’s Studies, Professor Antonopoulos

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