Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Research Tips

Here are some tips and reminders for conducting research for your semester-long project.
Deng Pan and the research staff at the library are available to help you (as am I). Deng can be most helpful if you email her a couple of days in advance of your visit to the library, so that she can make time to assist you.
The "Ask a Librarian" page is your friend. Does it get any more convenient than being able to IM, email, phone, or visit library staff for help?
Some more handy facts, mostly gleaned from Deng's handy orange information sheets...
Subject headings: These are the exact words that our topics are listed under in the library catalog (Keene-Link) and elsewhere. Try them in your next search.

  • blogs
  • communication and culture
  • digital communications
  • digital media
  • electronic mail systems
  • instant messaging
  • mass media and women
  • mass media - ownership
  • mass media - technological innovation
  • online journalism
  • online social networks
  • webcasting
Here are some Library of Congress classification call number categories. Go to the library and browse the sections that are relevant to your topic:

  • HQ1180-HQ1186 Women's studies
  • P94-P96 Special aspects of the media
  • PN4784.062 Online journalism
  • TK5103-TK5105 Digital communications
To find articles, you can go on the Web to Mason Library-->Find an eSource-->Indexes and Databases.
  • Lexis-Nexis Academic provides full-text documents from over 6,000 publications. Since they cover a lot of newspapers and magazines, which may be your main source of information on new technologies, this database can be a powerful tool.
  • GenderWatch is a full-text database that provides in-text coverage of subjects central to women's lives.
  • Academic Search Premier is multidisciplinary database with full text for nearly 4,000 scholarly publications.
Other useful databases through EBSCOhost are:

  • Communication & Mass Media Complete (communication and mass media)
  • ERIC (education) Newspaper Source (newspapers)
  • Soc-Index with Full Text (sociology)
  • PsychINFO (psychology)

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