Research + the Libraries

Key skills and resources for Summer Scholars

S3P 07-22-2024

Christina Bush (she/her)
Research & Instruction Librarian
 

Simon Elichko (they/them)
Social Sciences & Data Librarian

+ Get to know each other

+ Introduction to the Swarthmore libraries

+ What is research?

+ How do we find it?

What are we doing here?

Introductions

• Part One:
  • Share your name, pronouns if you want, hometown, and favorite dessert
• Part Two
  • Break into groups of 4

  • Chat within your group about an experience or associations you have with libraries. This can be with a public library, a school library, etc.

     

Materials

People & Expertise

Programs

Spaces

Swarthmore Library Resources

Subject Librarians

Also: librarian@swarthmore.edu

Science, Math, Engineering

Educational Studies, Black Studies, Psychology

Art & Art History, Classics, Latin American & Latino Studies, Linguistics, Philosophy, Religion,  Spanish, English

Economics, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Peace & Conflict Studies, Political Science, Sociology & Anthropology

Dance, Music, Theater

Modern Languages & Literatures

Digital Scholarship

What is Research?

process

(something you do)

stuff

(something you find)

Speaking of research as stuff, what kinds of materials could you use?

• Print books
• Print journals
• eBooks
• Online journals
• Articles
• Book chapters
• Data and Statistics
• Maps
• Magazines and Newspapers
• DVDs and streaming video

Where can you find it?

Tripod

swarthmore.edu/libraries

Research Guides & Database Finder

At the libraries

Developing strategies for
doing research

Today, we'll practice:

• Finding a specific source

• Following leads in other scholars' works

• Recognizing different types of sources

• Finding research articles about a topic of interest

• Evaluating whether a source may be useful for you

Finding a specific source

Let's say that you're writing a paper and your professor gives you this citation for a book chapter by Niobe Way and Joseph Nelson.

How would you find it?

Way, N., & Nelson, J. (2018). The listening project: Fostering curiosity and connection in middle schools. In N. Way, A. Ali, C. Gilligan, & P. Noguera (Eds.), The crisis of connection: Its roots, consequences, and the solutions (pp. 274–298). New York University Press.

Finding a specific source

You can look it up in Tripod (tripod.swarthmore.edu) which searches materials available from the libraries.
 

Often, searching for the book title (not the chapter title) will work better.

Way, N., & Nelson, J. (2018). The listening project: Fostering curiosity and connection in middle schools. In N. Way, A. Ali, C. Gilligan, & P. Noguera (Eds.), The crisis of connection: Its roots, consequences, and the solutions (pp. 274–298). New York University Press.

Look up the book in Tripod.

Follow the link to ProQuest Ebook Central.

Navigate to the chapter, which starts on page 274.

Following leads in other scholars' works

When you're exploring a topic, you can often find helpful leads by looking at the articles, books, and other sources cited by other scholars.

Let's say you want to read more about transformative interviewing:

1. Turn/scroll to page 288 and look at note 30.

2. Then to actually read note 30, navigate to page 297.

To follow these leads, it's helpful to recognize what kind of sources are being cited. You can learn to recognize these patterns.

Following leads: recognizing different types of sources

Journal Articles

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of Article. Title of Journal, Volume # (Issue #), Page #s, doi:xx.xxxx/xxxxxx

Following leads: recognizing different types of sources

Book Chapters

Author, A. (Year). "Title of chapter," in Title of book, ed. Editor(s). Location: Publisher, pages.

Books

Author, A. (Year). Title of work. Location: Publisher.

Other common source types: Conference Presentations, Videos

To read an article or book, search Tripod (unless you'd rather pay for it!)

So how would you go about citing this article in your own work?

1. You can get a quick automatically-generated citation in Tripod - but you'll need to verify that it's accurate.
    
2. ZoteroBib is a citation generator that lets you generate and change styles for multiple citations at once. (Let's try citing
    
3. You can find the official style guides on the Libraries' Citation Guide: bit.ly/trico-citations

Recap -- so far, we've looked at:

• Finding a specific source

• Following leads in other scholars' works

• Recognizing different types of sources

When do you imagine it could be helpful to look at the sources an author cites?

Additional strategies for
doing research:

• Finding research articles about a topic of interest

• Evaluating whether a source may be useful for you

Finding research articles about
a topic of interest

Some useful tools
for finding research:

• Tripod    (tripod.swarthmore.edu)

• Databases (Web of Science, JSTOR)

• Google Scholar (scholar.google.com)

Librarians can help you learn to navigate the different resources available to you.

Finding research articles about
a topic of interest

Evaluating if a source
will be useful to you

What do you look for when you're finding sources for a paper or academic project?

Relevance

• Is it on topic?
  • Search within the article
• What are you looking for?
  • Background information
  • Evidence / exhibits
    • Texts to analyze
  • Arguments
    • Other scholars' points that you can critique and build on
  • Methods

Quality

• Is it scholarly?
  • Advantage of using Web of Science
  • Author
    • Author/contributor bios
    • Can look them up
  • Publisher
    • _____ University Press
    • Routledge, Springer/Palgrave
• Citations
  • How often is this article or author cited?

How do you know if a source is any good?

B / E / A / M

Writers rely on background sources, interpret or analyze exhibits, engage arguments, and follow methods.

Bizup (2008)

Exhibit (Evidence)

Background

Argument

Method (Model)

B/E/A/M examples 

Open the handout: bit.ly/beam-swat

BEAM your research

The BEAM framework can help you clarify your goals while looking for sources and reading, and can inform your next steps.

Library Help

Reach out and ask! We're here to help.

• Your research projects
• Questions about library services

How?

• Email us (librarian@swarthmore.edu)
• Make an appointment with a subject librarian
• Research Guides

• During the school year, you can use
  chat in Tripod to get help.

Thank you!

Christina Bush (cbush1)

Research and Instruction Librarian

Simon Elichko (selichk1)

Social Sciences and Data Librarian

questions?