The APA Guide
https://guides.rasmussen.edu/apa
Use the APA Guide to find help with formatting, creating in-text citations, and references. Start by watching the APA Quick Start video on the homepage. Then review the resources in the APA Tool Kit.
For the final project you will be completing an Annotated Bibliography.
An annotated bibliography is the full APA Reference of a source followed by notes and commentary about a source. The word“annotate” means “critical or explanatory notes” and the word “bibliography” means “a list of sources”. Annotations are meant to be critical in addition to being descriptive.
Visit the Annotated Bibliography Page of the APA Guide for guidance and examples. You can also visit the tab at the top of the box for more help.
This guide will provide you with additional resources to help you successfully navigate and complete this course. You will notice that there are boxes below that correspond to modules in the course:
Topic / Information Ethics / Evaluate Resources / Search / Books / Scholarly Journals / Magazines / Newspapers
Notice tabs at the top of each box for you to click through. Take some time to browse this guide by clicking on various tabs, or go right to the section that will help you with where you are in the course.
Before beginning a research project, read the assignment thoroughly and try to answer the following questions:
Consider using brainstorming techniques to identify a topic.
Search reference books including encyclopedias, handbooks, and dictionaries to find basic information on your topic. In some cases, reading an overview article on a broad topic can aid in narrowing a topic for a research assignment.
Consult these databases to find background information:
Often it is a good idea to do a general search for articles on your topic to see if there is reliable, credible, and current information on your chosen topic. In other words, test your topic by performing a general search in the Discovery All-in-One Search tool.
View the video below to learn how to search this "all in one" resource:
The purpose of a thesis statement is to inform the reader of what exactly will be covered in the paper or written assignment. In fact, a well written thesis statement can provide the structure of the paper by clearly stating your position on a topic and the points that you will make throughout the course of the paper to prove your position. Consulting your working outline may be helpful in developing your thesis statement. Also, don't be surprised if your thesis statement changes as you research and learn more about your topic!
A well-written thesis statement:
A thesis statement is never:
Watch the video below to learn more about writing good thesis statements.
Using information ethically includes crediting creators of source material used in a research paper or academic assignment. View the video below for tips on how to avoid inadvertent plagiarism.
Section 106 of the copyright law lists the exclusive rights of copyright owners. The remaining sections of Chapter 1 describe a number of exceptions and limitations on those rights. Exceptions most common in educational settings are Section 107: Fair Use; Section 108: Reproduction by Libraries and Archives; Section 109: Transfer (Right of First Sale).
The doctrine of fair use allows the reproduction of a copyrighted work if used for “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research” (U.S. Copyright Office, 2012, para. 2). Determining whether the use of copyrighted material is acceptable under the doctrine of Fair Use is not always clear. Obtaining permission from the owner of the copyrighted material is always the best course of action. However, the interpretation of the doctrine of fair use should be guided by the following factors:
Court Opinions Interpreting Fair Use
Click on the link below to view court opinions interpreting the fair use of copyright protected resources:
It is very important to be aware that not all sources of information are credible. Especially when searching the internet, you should maintain constant vigilance toward ensuring the validity of any sources you use for your assignments.
A helpful tool for evaluating your search results is the SCRAAP Test. This has you look at the following components of the resource:
The following tabs will give more information on each of these components.
The source of the information
The reason the information exists
The first thing to do when starting research in a database is to brainstorm some search terms to use.
Search terms are brief, concise words or phrases that represent the core idea(s) of your topic.
For example, instead of searching with a sentence like this:
How are children affected when they have a parent in prison?
It will be more effective to search with terms like this:
incarceration AND families AND effects
On the following tabs, you will see how to go through the process to come up with your own search terms.
One of the easiest ways to come up with search terms is to identify the core concepts of your topic.
Let's continue with the sample topic from the previous tab: how children are affected when they have a parent in prison?
You can start breaking that topic up into separate ideas. For example:
children
parents
prison
effects
Now that you're thinking about those topics, on the next tab we'll see how to come up with additional terms that you can use in your searches.
Now that you have broken up your topic into concepts, let's take a look at those again:
children
parents
prison
effects
When you are searching for resources, it's important to remember that different authors will use different terms, so you want to come up with synonyms or related terms that you can use in your search. For example:
In addition to trying children and parents, try the term families.
In addition to prison, try incarceration.
In addition to effects, try consequences.
Trying out all kinds of different terms that apply to your topic will help you to find the most results.
Boolean Operators connect keywords or concepts logically to retrieve relevant articles, books, and other resources. There are three Boolean Operators:
Using AND
Venn diagram of the AND connector.
Example: The result list will include resources that include both keywords -- "distracted driving" and "texting" -- in the same article or resource, represented in the shaded area where the circles intersect (area shaded in purple).
Using OR
Venn diagram of the OR connector
Example: The result list will include resources that include the keyword "texting" OR the keyword "cell phone" (entire area shaded in blue); either is acceptable.
Using NOT
Venn diagram of the NOT connector
Example: The result list will include all resources that include the term "car" (green area) but will exclude any resource that includes the term "motorcycle" (purple area) even though the term car may be present in the resource.
So how does this apply to your search? For the most part, you will want to use AND to connect relevant search terms. For example:
families AND incarceration AND effects
But you can also use OR if you want to try more than one related term in the same search. For example:
families AND incarceration OR prison AND effects
Depending on your search terms, you may also want to search using exact phrases or truncation.
To search for an exact phrase, you can put quotations around a group of words. For example, a search for "incarcerated parent" will locate only those resources which have those words together as a phrase.
Truncation is a technique used in searching where you can search using part of a word to find all possible iterations of it. For example, instead of doing separate searches with prison and prisoners, truncating the term to prison* will search for all possible endings of that word.
The databases will often give you other search options to consider. These are the most common:
Date Range
You will often see an option to limit your results to a certain date range. This can be really helpful for filtering out resources that are out of date.
For most topics, ten years is the oldest you will want to go, but you may want to use a smaller range if you are researching anything related to technology. Think of the cell phone or computer you had ten years ago, and you'll easily see why that is important. Technology changes very quickly!
Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals
Many databases will give an option to limit to scholarly, peer reviewed journals. If that is something your assignment requires, check the box for this option to make sure all of your results are scholarly.
For more information on the terms "scholarly" and "peer reviewed," check out our Answer here.
Watch these short video demonstrations of simple database searches to better understand how to search and locate useful resources.
eBooks are electronic versions of printed books and can be accessed online. You can access eBooks using the links below. For additional information and help with eBooks, use the tab at the top of the box.
"Scholarly" typically means that the article was written to report actual research (such as a study conducted on a group of individuals) to others who are experts in the same field. Experts write scholarly articles for other experts. Because of the purpose of the article and the intended audience, scholarly articles tend to report statistics and observations. They tend to be written in a more academic language than a person might read in a popular magazine. They also tend to be very specific or focused in terms of topic. Do not expect to find broad overviews in scholarly articles.
If you think you're reading a scholarly article but are unsure, check whether it includes the following types of sections typical for scholarly articles.
You can access scholarly journals by selecting and searching library databases in the A-Z Database list. For additional information and help click the tab, Help with Scholarly Journals.
A magazine is a publication that is issued periodically and typically specializes in a specific subject or area. You can access magazines using the links below. For additional information and help with magazines, use the tab at the top of the box.
A newspaper is a regularly printed publication usually containing news articles, opinions, and advertisements. You can access newspapers using the links below. For additional information and help with newspapers, use the tab at the top of the box.
