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Library FAQ or "Where to Start" "I have a paper for my English 1002 class - what do I do?" There are three types of sources that most professors allow: reference books, "circulating" books, and journal articles. ("Circulating" means they "circulate" or get checked out.) Reference books are a great place to get started, since they will give you background information: where is your author from, what other things have they written, what style is your story or poem written in, and much more. Books tend to be longer, and talk about the author's life or their writing on the whole. Journal articles tend to be focused on specific characters, themes, or other parts of one story or poem. Start with reference books and books, and then look for journal articles. "I have to give a speech but my professor says not to use Wikipedia. What else is there?" If you're just getting started, why not try a reference book? Reference books are designed to help you get the background information you need - to use directly, or to use as a springboard into books and journal articles. If you want to start by using resources found on the computer, check out "Credo Reference" on the Online Access page. This collection of over 580 reference books is sure to have something on almost any topic, and can give you ideas for other words or phrases to use to help you find even more information. "I need journal articles." Journals are a type of magazine that are written and edited by experts in that subject or field. "JAMA" or the "Journal of the American Medical Association", is one of them. Not all journals will have "journal" in the title - "Explicator" is a journal that analyzes short stories and poems. Often your professor will require "peer-reviewed" or "scholarly" articles, which both mean the same thing - that those articles have been examined by experts in that field before being published. To find journal articles, you will need to use tools called indexes and databases. "I have to write a career paper for my Nursing class and I'm lost." The NURS 1000 class requires students to write a career paper. Sources you will or might use include books, journal articles, and websites. Always check your assignment to see what is required. You can find books in the library catalog. The best way to search for journal articles in nursing or allied health is to use "CINAHL Plus with Full Text" which is a database from EBSCO (listed on the Online Access page). For websites, your professor may give you a list of suggestions or there are good choices under both the Federal Materials and Helpful Websites. Also check out the Searching Basics page for step-by-step guides to many library tools and the Citation Station for help with the APA style. How do I use from home? What's my log-in and password? (NEW) When you're on-campus, you won't need to log-in to any of the library resources. (Unless you want to use personalized features like a bookshelf, saved articles, or take a test.) If you are off-campus, you will need to log-in in order to have access to articles or e-books. There are two different lists of subscription resources on this website: one for students, faculty, and staff; and the other for community or "special" borrowers.
STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND STAFF SHOULD ONLY SEE 2 BOXES. IF YOU SEE 3 BOXES YOU ARE USING THE WRONG PAGE AND YOUR PASSWORD WILL NOT WORK. How to Print Multiple Slides per Page in PowerPoint 2010 Most PowerPoint slideshows are set up to print one slide per page. This can be changed to save you paper.
(Linked PDF with step-by-step pictures: For 2003/XP Version or For 2007 Version. 2010 Version will be created if requested.) I can't find something I used before. Some resources were cut by our state group, LOUIS. There are: Oxford English Dictionary, World Book Advanced, EBSCO's SportDiscus, and EBSCO's International Political Science Abstracts. CQ's World Researcher will be cut after 12/31/10. What's the difference between the title of the article and the title of the journal or magazine? Unlike a book, articles have 2 titles, because the article is only part of the whole journal or magazine. For example, the magazine "Newsweek" may have an article inside called "School Lunch Reform". In that example "School Lunch Reform" is the title of the article and "Newsweek" is the title of the magazine. What do I list for database when using MLA citation for an article? Why is "EBSCO" or "MLA International Bibliography" NOT correct? For MLA style, if you use a database to get the full-text of an article (or a book), you need to add the name of the full-text database as part of your citation. EBSCO is NOT a database; it is a company that provides databases. MLA International Bibliography is an index, not a database; it finds the information, but then gives you a link to read the full-text (if we have access). You need to use the database listed as "full-text database", because that is where the full-text, the actual article, is coming from. Edited image with the "Full-Text Database" field circled: Image/JPEG or PDF. I need to find and use a book, but I'm off-campus. The Library has two collections of electronic books, or e-books, that students, faculty and staff can use both on and off-campus.
While you can find both print and electronic books in our catalog, if you know you need to have an e-book, it's better to search them directly (use the Online Access page). Note: free book collections online tend to be: older (Project Gutenburg, some Google Books), partial (other Google Books), or worse. These collections contain quality material chosen specifically for college students.
UPDATED: October 7, 2011
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