Course Project
Since experience truly is the best teacher, students in Library Research 101001 will do a research project that encourages creative application of research concepts. The project will involve finding several types of resources on a chosen topic, recording the results in an annotated bibliography and posting it on the World Wide Web. During the last class session, students will briefly share their projects with the rest of the class.
Choosing a topic
Your topic can be anything in which you have a great interest. If you are writing a term paper for another course, that topic would be a good way to "kill two birds with one stone." (Yecch!) Topics will be turned in Monday, 7 September. All topics are subject to approval, not to stifle your creativity but to ensure that your topic is feasible for this class. You need to choose something that has been written about and which will be represented in library resources! I will have a list of possible topics for those who cannot decide.
Your annotated bibliography will include:
- 1 article from Encyclopaedia Britannica at http://www.britannica.com/
- 2 Reference Resources, such as a subject encyclopedia and subject dictionary.
- 2 Books
- 2 Journal Articles
- 1 Newspaper Article
- 2 Web sites that are "good" in terms of quality and authority
- 1 Web site that is "bad" in terms of authority (but which can be interesting otherwise).
Optional:
- 1 Book Review
- 1 Biographical Resource
We will be doing some lab exercises in class that will help you find and cite resources. It will be helpful to synchronize your project progress with material covered in class. That is, after you learn how to search for books in the library catalog, look for 2 books on your topic. After you learn how to search periodical indexes, look for your journal articles. This way, you can pace yourself and not experience "crunch time" at the end of the term.
Items will be cited according to the MLA Style Manual. Examples of citations are also in your text, Appendix D, and in Diana Hacker, A Writer's Reference, (in the UNCA bookstore for Language 101). You will learn how to write a simple HTML file in class so that your project can be viewed as a Web page.
Refer to this template for your Web pages to ensure a little consistency. You can "View source" in your browser to see the code. You may add creative touches to the Web page, such as backgrounds, graphics, fonts, and layout enhancements if you like. Content, however, is most important.
UNCA