Writing 101: Fairy Tales and Pop Culture

1.) BREAK YOUR TOPIC INTO SEVERAL KEYWORDS AND CREATE SEARCH STRINGS (YOU WILL NEED TO CONSTRUCT MULTIPLE SEARCHES)

I wish to explore how war is discussed from a Christian viewpoint

A particular war? Vietnam, Gulf War, World War I?

What denomination of Christianity? Baptist, Protestant?

What viewpoint? Ethically? Morally? Politically?

Morality AND War AND Christianity

War AND Politics AND Baptist AND Religion

Violence AND Ethics AND Baptist

Violence AND Morality AND Christianity

2.) USE THE REFERENCE WORKS TAB TO FIND AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OR DICTIONARY ENTRY ON YOUR TOPIC

This will list citations for books and journal articles, as well as help you formulate your thesis.

3.) SEARCH THE LIBRARY CATALOGS WITH YOUR KEYWORDS

* pay attention to subject headings

4.) SEARCH THE DATABASES WITH YOUR KEYWORDS

* pay attention to subjects

5.) DEVELOP THESIS FROM COLLECTED SOURCES OR START PROCESS OVER AGAIN WITH NEW TOPIC

Welcome!

We're glad you're here. You've made the first step in delving into research at Denison.

What do you need to know?

First thing is that you will need to plan ahead. Research can take time, including building in time for getting materials. There are many books and articles available directly within the library or online through the library, but some things will need to be requested. Make sure you build in time for getting books from other libraries through CONSORT or OhioLINK. It will take about 3 days to get them delivered to you. You will get an email when they arrive at our circulation desk for pickup.

First starting point for searching?

Try Summon, think of it as the library equivalent of Google - it searches across a wide variety of sources, but you can limit it to what you need (such as scholarly articles).