English 1213 Research Project

Assignment overview
Basically, your task is to research what was happening in the world during the week you were born.

First, you will read five articles from the first issue of Time or Newsweek published after you were born. If the magazine was not published on your birthday itself, you will use the first issue published after your date of birth.  For instance, if you were born on July 12, 1986, the date of publication of the issue of Time or Newsweek might be any day between July 12, 1986 and July 18, 1986.

Then you will do research on the general subjects of those five articles in Time or Newsweek using five different search vehicles or databases to locate five secondary articles or sources meeting the requirements for different types of sources specified below (namely, one book, one hard-copy newspaper article, one hard-copy journal article, and two electronic journal articles).

Lastly you will write brief summaries or annotations of the five secondary sources you found through the research process.  That is, you will write brief summaries not of the five articles from Time or Newsweek, but of the different secondary sources you find in researching the topics from the original five Time or Newsweek articles.  For each of the secondary sources you locate, you must 1) document your steps in the research process by printing out the search results screens in each database or search vehicle you use, 2) give complete correct bibliographic information for each secondary source (see QD5), and 3) write a summary of at least 100 words relating the gist of each source item.

So long as you follow instructions carefully, this assignment should be an easy "A."  But since there are strict and specific requirements you must satisfy in the types of sources used and in your documentation of the research process, your success depends mostly on how carefully you follow instructions and requirements.  If you're uncertain about any part of this assignment, do let me know.

Assignment Specifics
Step One: In RSU's Stratton Taylor Library locate the first issue of Time or Newsweek published after your date of birth.  You must locate this magazine in the Stratton Taylor's collection of microfilm. Print the cover of the magazine.

Step Two: Scan through the table of contents and the magazine itself, and select, read, and print the cover story and the four most interesting additional articles in your issue of Time or Newsweek from the following categories:

Photocopy or print the first page, at least, of all five articles (the cover story and four others).

Step Three: For the cover story and for the other four articles you selected, locate other sources in the RSU library that deal with some significant topic in each article, using a different database or search vehicle for each article.

Note: The topic you research does not have to be exactly the same central topic the Time or Newsweek article focuses on, but it should be some significant related issue.  For example, if your cover story is about nuclear arms talks between the U.S. and the USSR in 1986, you might find a source dealing with nuclear arms more generally, anything about nuclear weapons at all.  Your source could examine any aspect of nuclear weapons at any time in history, not just in 1986.  You may have to be creative here: for instance, if the "Sport" article you read is about the 1986 NCAA basketball championship, and you cannot locate other articles specifically about the 1986 NCAA basketball tournament, you might instead find an article on one of the teams or athletes mentioned in the article—the runner-up Duke Blue Devils, or star player Johnny Dawkins, perhaps.  The article you find could then be any article about Johnny Dawkins or the Duke basketball team whether or not it relates to the 1986 NCAA championship—an article about Duke basketball from last week would be fine, for example.  If the item you find through the research process deals not with the obvious general subject of the Time or Newsweek article, but with some smaller aspect of the original article, photocopy the relevant page of the article and highlight or underline the subject you have chosen to research in the original Time or Newsweek article (Johnny Dawkins for example, or the "Ireland" portion of a "World" article).

Database requirements: You must use at least five different databases available in the Stratton Taylor library, and no database may be used more than once.  You should not, for instance, use Lexis-Nexis to acquire more than one source.  You can access the lists of Stratton Taylor Library's database choices via the Search Databases or the Journals List links on the RSU Library's home page.

You may find that the most helpful page on the library website is the Library Resource Guides page, where there are links to databases and sources categorized by subject or discipline (Business, History, English, Biology, Nursing, etc.)

You must use five different databases or search vehicles, and you must document the search process for all five of your secondary sources by printing both the database search information (the search results screen), and where appropriate, the Stratton Taylor Library catalog search results screen, for each source.  That is, print the database search results and print the RSU Library catalog results "hitlist," where applicable, for all five secondary sources.

For one source (only one), you can use as your primary database or search vehicle the Stratton Taylor Library catalog itself (i.e. to locate a book).

Source type requirements: Your five sources must include

1 book from RSU's Stratton Taylor library, or an article from a book in the RSU library

1 article from a hard-copy journal or magazine from the RSU library collection (either in print or on microfilm)

1 article from a hard-copy newspaper (either in print or on microfilm)

2 items from a RSU-held electronic journal or other electronic source not available to the general public on the web (a full-text electronic journal article from JSTOR, or Lexis-Nexis, Ebsco, or First Search, e.g.)

Invalid sources: Encyclopedias (including Britannica Online), "yearbooks" of any kind, other issues of Time or Newsweek; two items acquired through the same database or other search vehicle; two sources from the same publication—two articles from the NY Times, for instance, is not acceptable; any items from the World Wide Web.

Step Four: Photocopy or print at least the first page of each secondary source you locate via the five different databases or search vehicles—i.e. the first page of the article or electronic publication.  For books, photocopy the title page and the first page of the text (or of the pertinent chapter or article).

Step Five: On separate pages, write summaries (100 words minimum per summary) relating the gist of each of your five secondary sources.  Each summary page should include bibliographic information as it would appear in an MLA-style Works Cited page at the top of the page.  Note: do not summarize the articles from Time or Newsweek; summarize only the five secondary sources you find through the research process.

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Finished Product

When you turn in the project, include the following, in the following order:

1)  Title page
2)  Research project requirement checklist, filled out
3)  Table of contents
4)  Time or Newsweek cover (printed from microfilm)
5)  Your findings for each of the five sources, arranged as follows:
    a)  Copy of first page of Time or Newsweek article
    b)  Database or search vehicle printout(s)
    c)  Copy of first page of secondary source
    d)  Bibliographic entry and typed summary of secondary source
6)  Bibliography page (listing separately all five Time or Newsweek articles and the five sources you summarize—10 entries total)

If you are confused, don't worry.  You will have the chance to review sample completed projects in class, and as always, you may call me at home or in the office or send email with questions.