Perspectives on Inquiry

What is Education?

Instructor: Amanda Plummer

Librarian: Joan Goodbody: email; goodbody@mtu.edu: phone; 487-2698

 

MTU Library Catalog:

Use the catalog to find items that the library owns: Searchable by author, title, subject or keywords. Also after using an index to find a paper/article that you want, youll need to use this catalog to determine whether we have the journal that the article appeared in. Articles from journals we do not have or books we do not have can be ordered through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Many of the databases now have a direct ILL link.

 

Reference resources:

The reference collection is a good place to begin exploring an unfamiliar subject. The encyclopedias and dictionaries found here can give you definitions of terms and background information on your subject. Along with help identifying specific issues within your broad subject area to explore in more detail. These resources include:

CQ researcher (issues): H35 .E2. REF: This is a multi volume (by year) publication that is put out to help the members of congress and their staff understand public issues. Index is in the front of the newest notebook. The Index is also available at: http://library.cqpress.com/researcher_index.pdf

American educators' encyclopedia: LB15 .D37 1991 REF

Digest of education statistics: L11 .D48 REF DESK

Education and sociology: an encyclopedia: LC189.95 .E38 2002 REF

Encyclopedia of education: LB15 .E47 2003 REF

Encyclopedia of educational research: LB15 .E48 1992 REF

 

E-Resources access to electronic indexes/abstracts, online books, e-journals and selected websites. From the E-Resource menu select listings by alphabet, topic or collection (e.g. FirstSearch or InfoTrac.) E-Resources are also searchable by name or keyword(s.) Use the index databases to locate journal articles, newspaper articles, or reviews on your topic. Some indexes or collections of indexes especially useful for research in this course include:

 

Databases:

FirstSearch: This database provides access to over 60 indexes. They include:

Worldcat, a comprehensive database for all types of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. This does NOT index periodicals at the article level;

Wilson Select Plus, A full text database comprised of articles represented by selected citations from Readers' Guide Abstracts, Social Sciences Abstracts, Humanities Abstracts, General Science Abstracts, Education Abstracts, and Wilson Business Abstracts.

Education Abstracts, This database encompasses all areas of educators, including administration, teaching methods and curriculum.

ERIC; This database is a guide to published and unpublished sources on educational topics, with information from RIE (Resources in Education) and CIJE (Current Index to Journals in Education). Be aware that the full text version is available from a link too, but only covers 1996-now.

 

 

Infotrac: A comprehensive multi-index database including:

General Reference Center Gold (issues and philosophers): A general interest database that integrates a variety of sources in one easy-to-use interface. Use General Reference Center Gold to find articles from newspapers, reference books, and periodicals, many with full-text and images.

Expanded Academic ASAP:Gives access to arts and the humanities to social sciences, science and technology scholarly journals, news magazines, and newspapers - many with full text and images!;

Professional Collection: A collection of educational journals picked for their relevance in the modern world for today's professional.

JSTOR: is a searchable database containing scanned images of back issues of over 100 scholarly journals in a variety of academic disciplines. Titles currently available are from the fields of: African-American Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, Ecology, Economics, Education, Finance, History, Literature, Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Science, Population Studies, Sociology and Statistics.

 

Evaluation of websites: http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/webeval.html - Cornell University Libraries Research Skills -One of the best sites on evaluating information found on the Internet.

 

Suggested Websites:

 

Firstgov.gov: www.firstgov.gov. This is the official government site that searches over 87 million sites. Can search for just federal, federal and a specific state, federal and all states, all states, or a specific state. Advanced search gives the most flexability.

American Memory: http://www.loc.gov/. This is the main page of the Library of Congress. Click on American Memory to get to the search page. American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections.

Firstgov for kids: www.kids.gov. This site is designed for kids and links to most sites that are designed for kids. There are lots of lesson plans, etc. for K-12 assignements.

Department of Education: www.ed.gov. This site has links for teachers and other professionals. For online publications from the department of education must go to this site since for some reason firstgov.gov does not search below the first level of this website. Scholarly articles can be found at: http://www.ed.gov/about/pubs/intro/pubdb.html

 

CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE AND TURABIAN: Print version is available at the MTU Library Reference desk.

The Chicago Manual of Style. (14^th ed. 1993).

Z253.U69 1993 REF Desk

Online! Using Chicago Style to Cite and Document Sources http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite7.html

Turabian Citation and Format Style Guide

http://www.bucknell.edu/Library_Computing/Doing_Research/Citation_Guides/Turabian.html