MLA Citation
Primary & Secondary Sources
Around the LRC
Search Strategies
Academic Databases
100
What does MLA stand for?
Modern Language Association
100
Is an autobiography is considered a primary or a secondary source?
primary source (story written by the person themselves--first hand experience)
100
What is the desk called where you go to check out books in the LRC?
The circulation desk
100
What is the best tool to use for finding printed books owned by the COS Library?
The library catalog/OPAC
100
True or false: you can find academic journal articles using any of the academic databases.
False--some are just for eBooks, newspapers/magazines, artwork, and/or reference sources. Always check the document type to see what it is!
200
What is the "hanging indent?"
The tabbed format for MLA citations in the works cited page. The first line is flush with the left-hand margin, but the lines after that are tabbed in one.
200
Is the information you read in a reference book, like an encyclopedia, a primary or secondary source?
Secondary (it is a summary of many other information sources on a topic)
200
Name 2 library resources that do not have Dewey Decimal numbers assigned to them.
Magazines, fiction books, newspapers, academic journals
200
Demonstrate one of the two ways you can search for an eBook the COS Library owns.
1. Through the catalog 2. Through the eBook database
200
What is the section of academic journal articles called that summarizes the article in about 300 words or less?
Abstract
300
If you are citing a chapter, article, section, or smaller portion of a larger work, the title of this smaller section is in what format in the MLA citation?
The title is put in quotation marks and comes before the italicized title of the larger work.
300
You want to include a chart from newspaper on rainfall statistics for this year. Is this a primary or secondary source?
Primary (it is raw data, not a summary or critique of anything)
300
You need help with formatting your paper and citations in MLA format. Where is the best place to go in the LRC for assistance?
The writing center
300
Will a subject term search or a keyword search give you more results back?
Keyword (Quantity=quality, however!)
300
Demonstrate: Translate this search "equation" into an Academic Search Premier database search: ("community college" OR "junior college") AND student AND success
Make sure of Boolean operators and phrase searching
400
Demonstrate: How would you find the MLA citation for an eBook?
The title of the book chapter, article, website, etc. and the page number where the information can be found (if available).
400
If a psychologist performs a study on a group of participants and then writes an article about the data he/she collected, is this considered a primary or secondary source?
Primary (it is their own data and they performed the study first-hand)
400
When you are off campus and wanting to use the academic databases, what is the information you will use to log in?
Banner ID (no @) and birthday (3/24/1999)
400
I want to search for the synonymous terms "community college" and "junior college" at the same time. Which Boolean operator should I use between those terms?
OR--database will search for documents with either term or both terms.
400
When you do a key term search in a database, where in the article is it searching for the terms you entered?
Title, author, abstract, subjects, first few paragraphs/sentences
500
The following is a MLA citation for a entry within a reference source. What is the title of the entry? What is the title of reference source? What is the title of the database? Farel, Anita, Robert Meyer, and Maggie Hicken. "Birth Defects." Child Development. Ed. Neil J. Salkind. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. 55-58. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.
Entry: "Birth Defects" Reference Source: Child Development (Italics) Database: Gale Virtual Reference Library (Italics)
500
What is one benefit of using secondary sources?
They provide summaries of multiple other information sources on similar topics, they let you see another point of view, they are free/cheap/easy to find, they analysis/digest/summarize difficult concepts or data.
500
How many subject classes/categories does the Dewey Decimal System have?
10 (000's-900's)
500
Why might you want to start your research with a subject encyclopedia/reference source?
To get an overview of a topic, background information, and important key terms and related topics.
500
When you need information about research studies, experiments, trials, and/or case studies, which information resource is best to look for and give an example of a database you could use to find it.
Academic journal articles are usually published after somebody does a study/research and discovers something. They can also analyze, critique, and/or summarize past research in a certain study. You can find academic journal articles in most of our databases, except the news, reference, eBook, and art database.
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