Melanie Dittus ENG 102
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October 8, 2014
13 students
Brief Intro (Whiteboard)
o name
o e-mail
o library.elgin.edu
o library car renewal (this came towards the end of class)
Topic Selection
o Brainstorming session
 Who, What, When, Where, Why - questions to ask oneself when
thinking of a topic (Whiteboard)
 Give students half a sheet of paper and 5-7 minutes to write down all
the words related to their topic or to write down possible topics?
o Synonyms - i.e. the thesaurus is your friend (whiteboard)
 Ask students for topic ideas
 The computer only knows what you tell it, it doesn’t understand
concepts/ ideas
 Student volunteered pollution
o Greenhouse gases
o oil spills
o global warming
 Discuss related words & ideas (my example, backup for it students
hadn’t given me a topic)
 “minimum wage”
 labor
 unions
 employment/ unemployment
o Topic Overview
 Start at library.elgin.edu
 This can give you a start to help see if you’re interested in writing
about this topic. I would encourage you to choose a topic that sounds
fascinating to you.
 CQ Researcher
 hot topics sidebar
o “gun control”
o brings you to the most recent short- report, with related
reports on the sidebar
 browse topics
o “Human Rights”
o “Domestic Issues”
o Reports on various social issues in America
 show students “minimum wage”
o Narrowing/ widening
 Keywords (Proquest)
 racism
 apartheid
 “ institutional racism”
o
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When using quotes around a phrase, it tells the
database to search for that as a phrase rather than two
separate words
 discrimination
o search for discrimin*
o The asterisk is a wildcard, that tells the database to
search for everything with that root.
 Subject Terms (Academic Search Complete)
 Feminism
o “Gender identity” - an aspect/ narrower subject within
the broader social issue of feminism
 Boolean Operators (Academic Search Complete)
 AND
o narrows a search because it is looking for the terms that
overlap.
o Test Searches:
 unions AND unemployment
 unions AND unemployment AND wages
 OR
o widens a search because it is looking for this or that and
pulls articles from either search term
o Test searches:
 red-light cameras
 red-light cameras OR privacy
 NOT
o Narrows a search by telling the database not to include
a certain term in the search
o Test Searches:
 Texting
 Texting NOT Driving
 Combining BOOLEAN operators in a search
o This allows for a fine-tuned search strategy
 Texting AND communication NOT driving
How to find Books on your topic
o Start at library.elgin.edu
 Type in “abortion” into the search box
 This brings back 190 titles
 How to narrow the search?
 go back to the search box
 type in the topic
 go to the drop down box next to the search box and select
“subject” and hit search
 This brings up a list of subjects based on the term typed into
the box
 Click on “Abortion Law and legislation United States”
o It gives 6 books, rather than 190 and narrows the
selection of books.