Author Archives: moosa.shahadat

When researching, remember some golden tokens of information:

1) Keep your research relevant to your thesis/Research question

2) Research using different tricks such as the asterisk, and/or function, etc.

3) Make sure that your research can be put into one of the BEAM categories.

4) When quoting, introduce the quotations before using them.

5) Remember that the sources are to be analyzed, and not just thrown in to make your paragraphs look lengthy.

6) Do not try researching everything in one day!

7) Your professors give you their emails for a reason.. contact them if you need any help/feedback. Most professors (That I’ve encountered so far) will help you.

8) Make sure your clear about your research question.. try to specify it as much as possible and stick to arguing your point about it.

9) Databases allow for numerous categories. Practice with researching topics using the different databases and what works best for your research.

10) DO NOT PLAGIARIZE!

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. New York: Penguin Press, 2004. Print.

Yardi, Sarita, and Danah Boyd. “Dynamic Debates: An Analysis of Group Polarization Over Time on Twitter.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 30.5 (2010): 316-327. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.

Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13.1 (2007). Web. 29 Nov. 2010.

The New York World’s Fair, 1939-40 – Treasures of The New York Public Library [Video] (1939) Retrieved November, 29th 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUAHKy3QlLc

Sisario, Ben. “U.S. Shuts Down Web Sites in Piracy Crackdown.” New York Times 26 Nov. 2010: n. pag. Nytimes.com. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.

So for background: (Fernback, 1999)

Exhibits:  (Poplin, 1972) 

Argument: (Heller, 1989)

Method: (Burroughs & Eby, 1998)

Today in class, I learned a very relevant tool for researching: What FIND IT! does. Countless times already, I have found sources for research that were not available. Today, I learned how to get these articles. I also learned today about the Who’s Who! Database and how that can provide brief overviews on a person’s profession, education, and past publications. Lastly, I learned that Google scholar is not the most reliable source since it allows more citing than necessary.

I would like to learn how to evaluate where an article got IT’s sources from. This way, I can put together better searches and rely on more accurate databases.

Some methods which information technology is broken down into include:

1) Continent

2) Subcontinent

3) Grammatical subjects (Abbreviation, acronym)

4) Economic subjects