Chapter 8 Summary

Chapter 8 discusses how to search for information with digital resources. This chapter goes into depth discussing how you can prepare your search, how to search for sources on a online library catalog, how to find sources on a database, how to find sources on the Web and how to search for sources with media search sites. This chapter helps you understand the importance of finding reliable sources and how to go about doing that. I have found this chapter extremely helpful since finding sources is just half the battle of writing this paper. Without having sources that provide me with the essential information it would make my paper not as a effective. With all of that being said, to begin any research you must make a research plan and proposal. That means you are going to explore your said topic and this will help provide you with guidance as you begin your research. Another key thing to remember when you are beginning to start your research is that you will want to identify keywords and phrases that are linked to your topic so you get less broad results. Using online library catalogs can be very beneficial. Library catalogs provide information from materials in a library's collection. They can help you locate books, journals, newspapers/magazines, documents, multimedia (such as videotapes, audiotapes, CDs and DVDs), maps and theses and dissertations completed by the colleges graduate students. Another good source for information is databases which work very similarly to online library catalogs. With databases the information falls into five categories; news and information, subject, bibliographies, citation indexes and media. Lastly Web search sites and media search sites can provide you with the much needed information that you need. The tricky thing with that is you will need to filter through it to find sites that meet your topics expectations and provide you will proper information. All in all, this chapter is another piece to the puzzle in helping us develop our papers further.