English 102
The Research Process Part I
Finding Information in the Reference Area

    This tutorial will present the essential steps you will be following to complete your research assignment. For the purpose of demonstrating the research process, we will be researching the topic of aggression.

    So if you're feeling anxious, a little terrified, or even like running away, you'll realize, by the end of this session, that you'll be off to a good start and have nothing to fear! And you'll learn that, in researching a topic, you'll follow a simple and logical process.

    In this session, you'll begin by reading an article that provides an overview of your topic, and you'll identify keywords in the article that will be important in helping you to focus your topic. In subsequent sessions (Parts II and Parts III of the Research Process), you'll use the keywords to search the Library's online catalog and search the databases subscribed to by the Library. The important thing to remember is that you will continue to refine your topic as you work your way through all phases of the research process and see what information is available.

    You'll begin your research in the Reference area by finding background information on your topic in a Reference work such as a subject encyclopedia.

    In the next phase of your research, you'll use our online catalog, known as WebCat, to find books, government documents, or audio-visual materials.

    And, finally, you'll search our full text databases and indexes for magazine, journal, and newspaper articles that address the requirements of the assignment.

    The Library pays significant annual fees to subscribe to these databases. Searching these databases is vastly different and far superior to surfing the free web with a search engine such as Yahoo. - The old adage - "you get what you pay for" really applies here!

    Once you have a topic, you'll need to think about choosing a focus for the topic. To do this, you'll need to brainstorm a little and think of some questions you'd like answered about your topic.

    With the topic of aggression, we might be interested in aggression and children. So, we might want to consider the following questions.

    • Are boys more likely to be aggressive than girls?
    • Is there a psychological profile for aggression?
    • Are there some common physical or emotional traits among the perpetrators of aggression as well as the victims of aggression?
    • How has aggression in children been studied historically?
    • Do children who behave aggressively with other children also behave aggressively toward adults?
    • Do the behavior and/or attitudes of adults influence the occurrence of aggressive behavior?

    Now that we have formulated and jotted down some general questions regarding children and aggression, how do we go about gathering information that will really help in exploring and narrowing the focus of this topic?

    One way is to ask a Librarian if there is a subject encyclopedia that would provide background information on the topic. Since most reference materials are not available in an online full text format, you'll need to visit our library or another college library.

    Another way is to look at the Library's web page under the heading, "Help with Research" and click on the link for Resource Guides.

    Resource guides, arranged by discipline, provide a listing of reference sources. There are 34 resource guides, each providing a listing of reference sources for a specific discipline.

    Pathfinders, however, present the research process for a particular topic. A glance at this reveals that specific topics as opposed to broad disciplines are listed.

    In scanning the Resource Guides and Pathfinders to see if they could help in gathering information on my topic, I notice that there is a Pathfinder for Aggression.

    If there hadn't been a pathfinder for aggression, I would have looked at the Resource Guide for Psychology. I decide to begin my search for background information by looking at the Encyclopedia of Psychology.

    Under the term "aggression" in the index, there is a see reference to "violence and aggression." There are many entries under "violence and aggression." Scanning the list of topics under "violence and aggression" also helps in focusing my topic. An index is a terrific browsing tool because it includes a list of subtopics under more general topics, providing an overview of the various aspects of a topic at a glance.

    I notice that one of the topics listed under "violence and aggression" is "bullying." Since I know that this topic deals with aggression and children, I decide to find the article in volume 1, pages 487 - 489.

    After scanning the article, I see that several of the initial questions I asked about the topic are addressed.

    I photocopy the article, read it carefully, and highlight the words or phrases that I think best define the topic of bullying. By doing this, I have generated a list of key words that will help in really focusing my search and finding materials in our collection as well as searching the online databases subscribed to by the Library. When searching these databases, I can choose very specific keywords and phrases.

    My keywords include:

    Bully, bullying, victim, aggressive behavior, peer abuse, asymmetric power relationship, schoolchildren, boys, girls, personality, physical strength, physical weakness, passive or submissive, low self-esteem, submissive reaction pattern, group mechanisms, intervention.

    I can see from reading the article that there are many ways to focus my topic. I'm ready to move on to Part II of the Research Process - using the Library's online catalog.