Your In-class Assignment for Today (04 November)

Ahmed and Jack,

Today in class, you have an assignment that will help you improve your library-based research skills.

The first thing you will do is take today's class time to find two printed resources that will help you with your research topics. Get them from EKU's library before the end of class. The two sources must be printed, but they can be in the same book. That means if Jack finds a book called "A Collection of Awesome Essays about American Movies" and it has two interesting articles in it, he can use it for both sources. Same goes for you too, Ahmed; if one book has two good sources, it counts as both of them.

After you have your two sources, make a post on the class blog (Composition Research Source) with the title of each source.

The second thing you'll need to do is go to this website and browse around. The website is called the Online Writing Lab and is published by Purdue University. It is a very, very helpful source for learning how to document your essay. For now, just read it. We are going to be learning MLA style in class.

See you soon!

Ben

Today's Class

Ahmed and Jack,

Today in class we will be touring EKU's library (on our own). We'll meet in Java City and spend a minute or two discussing your homework, then we'll walk around the library. I'll show you where to find books and other printed sources related to your topics, good places to work, where to find help, and how to use the computer to search for library items.

Next on the list (probably for Monday) is a discussion of how to use web-based sources.


Ben

First Sources

The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University is a tremendously useful source for anyone conducting research. Check it out here: Online Writing Lab .


The OWL is updated regularly and includes information on citing in APA style, MLA style, and Chicago style. For E. E. L. I. students, you will focus on MLA citation style for this term; my ENG 102 students will use whatever citation style best suits your discipline. For example, you should cite a health-related paper with APA style because APA style acknowledges the date a piece of research was published and therefore ensures a source is not obsolete. In the humanities, you use MLA style because new sources don't make older sources (from the early 1990s) obsolete quite as quickly. Citing news and other current-events documents are different; we'll talk about them in class.


I haven't had a chance to look over this site yet, but I think it will help you get started looking for online information. It's called The Free Library . They've got newer sources and older ones; if you decide to use any of these sources in your papers, you will need to cite the website (the online version of the source); we'll discuss that in class.


Don't forget about Eastern's Library . The inter-library loan (ILLiad) is indispensable while you research, as are the multitudes of other online resources. We'll discuss online resources in class. If you do choose to use ILLiad to help you find sources, I suggest you do it early; it often takes a little over a week to get a source from one university to another. Digital files don't take terribly long, but books do. Look around, I'm sure you'll find something helpful.




Happy Researching,
Ben