A – The front desk. This is where you can check out books and return them. You can also come here for help when you need it.

B – Audiovisual area. (001 – 994) This is where you find the films and any materials you find that are labeled AV in the computer catalog, like 504.3AV.

C – Reference Area. (001 – 973) Where you can find all kinds of information about almost any topic.D – Almanacs and Dictionaries. When you need to look up a word or a topic for a general description or definition.

Nonfiction areas:

E – Geography and History (900 – 999)

Cultures of the World. (973 – 999)

H – Literature (800 – 899)

Plays (808.82), Shakespeare (822.33), Classics (880's)

I – Arts (700 – 799)

Drawing (741), Music (780's), Sports (796)

J – Technology (600 – 699)

Health and Medicine (610's), Cars (629), Resumes (658), Animals (636), Cooking (6410, Jobs (658)

K – Natural Science (500 – 599)

Math (510's), Astronomy (520's), Earth Science (550's), Dinosaurs and Fossils (560's), Biology and Botany (574 – 5890, Animals (590's)

L – Languages (400 – 499)

M – Social Sciences (300 – 399)

Politics (320's), Government (321), Economics (330), Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Fables (398),

O – Religion and Mythology (200 – 299)

Bible (220's), Comparative Religions (290's), Classical Mythology (292)

P – Philosophy and Psychology (100 – 199)

Supernatural (133), Emotions and Feelings (152), Ethics (1700

Controversial Knowledge (001.9), Computers (044 – 006), Journalism ( 070)

R – Story Collection

Fiction: (Organized by author's last name)

S – SA – ZI

T – NA – RY

U – CR – MY

V – AA - CO

Topics:

What to plan and how to write down my plan?

Right now you have a topic, but you need to have a plan. I suggest you use a graphic organizer format that you have learned in class and you are comfortable using. Everybody is different, so chose what works best for you. You want to think about what specifically you are going to research in your topic. If you are going to research dogs, for example, you could spend ten years finding out about all the information available on dogs. Be specific! What interests you most about dogs. Is it a certain breed, or how breeds came about over time? Do you want to know about training dogs or which breed has what type of personality. Put this information into your graphic organizer. You want to list all the important topics for your research and information under each topic. You may need to change this as you complete your research. You want a complete graphic organizer before you write your paper.

Where are the resources and what do I go to first?

First you want to identify basic information about your topic. Write down at least THREE topic words. If I were interested in dog breeding, I might write down: Dog, Breeding (or Dog Breeding), and Pedigree. Then you want to go to the reference section. First you want to go to the almanacs and encyclopedias. Look up your words in these sources. They are found in section D on your map. Remember you can always look up more than three words. You want to write down your information, so now look at the next section before you begin to take notes. After looking up your topic words, your should look through other reference materials in this section. Below is a list of our main resource items:

Encyclopedias, Almanacs, and Dictionaries (General):

The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003 – REF030 WO

The New Book of Knowledge 1997 – REF 031 NE

The World Book Encyclopedia 2002 – REF 031 WO

The American Heritage Student Dictionary – REF 423 AM

The Harcourt Brace Student Dictionary – REF 423 HA

The Macmillian Visual Dictionary by Jean Corbeil 1992 – REF 423 MA

Macmillian Dictionary for Students 1984 – REF 423 MA

Merriam-Webster's Intermediate Dictionary 1994 – REF 423 ME

Random House Unabridged Dictionary 1993 – REF 423 RA

Websters' Third New International Dictionary 1993 – REF 423 WE

Webster's New World Dictionary by David Guralnik – REF 423 WE

World Book Dictionary 1995 – REF 423 WO

The Oxford American Desk Thesaurus 1998 – REF 423 OX

Facts on File Student's Thesaurus by Paul Hellweg 1990 – REF 423 HE

People and Cultures

The World Book Encyclopedia of People and Places 2002 – REF 031.02 WO

Encyclopedia of World Cultures 1996 – REF 305 EN

Junior Worldmark encyclopedia of World Cultures 1999 REF 306 JU

Encyclopedia of Multiculturalism 1994 – REF 306.4 EN

Roots of the Republic 1996 – REF 320.973 RO

Career Discovery Encyclopedia 1997 – REF 331.7 CA

Encyclopedia of American Indian Costume by Josephine Paterek 1993 – REF 391 PA

The Historical Encyclopedia of Costumes by A. Racinet 1988 – REF 391 RA

Holidays and Festivals by Helene Henderson 1995 – REF 394.2 HO

American Folklore by Jan Brunvand 1996 – REF 398.2 AM

The American Sign Language Dictionary by Martin Steinberg 1994 – REF 419 ST

Random House Dictionary of Popular Sayings by Gregory Titelman – REF 398.9 TI

Encyclopedia of the Third World by George Kurian 1992 – REF 909 KU

Profiles in World History by Joyce Moss 1996 – REF 909 PR

The Middle Ages by William Jordan 1996 – REF 909.07 MI

African American Biography 1994 – REF 920 AF

People in the News by David Brownstone 1991- REF 920BR

Grolier Library of International Biographies 1996 – REF 920 GR

Grolier Library of North American Biographies 1994 – REF 920 GR

Twentieth-century African-American Writers and Artists by Chester Hedgepet – REF 920 HE

Major Authors and Illustrators of Children and Young Adults 1998 – REF 920 MA

Explorers and Discoverers by Peggy Saari 2002 – REF 920 SA

Profiles in American History by Joyce Moss 1994 – REF 920.073 MO

The Atlas of Human History by Rossi Renzo 1996 – REF 930 RE

Encyclopedia of North American Indians 1997 – REF 970.004 EN

Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History by Jack Salzman 1995 – REF 973 EN

The Presidents 1997 – REF 973.999 PR

American Civil War by the Civil War Society 1994 – REF 973.7 AM

Encyclopedia of the Confederacy by Richard Current 1993 – REF 973.7EN

Twentieth-century America by Associated Press 1995 – REF 973.921TW

America West: a Multicultural Encyclopedia 1995 – REF 978 AM

Geography

Lands and Peoples 1997 – REF 910 LA

Land Shapes 1992 – REF 910 LA

Encyclopedia of World Geography by Peter Haggett ed. 1994 – REF 910.3EN

Atlas of American History by Robert Ferrell 1995 – REF 911 FE

New Atlas of African History by Freeman Greenville 1993 – REF 911 FR

Atlas of Medieval Europe by Donald Matthew 1993 – REF 911 MA

Historical Atlas of the United States by National Geographic 1993 – REF 911 NA

The Dillon Press Children's Atlas by Malcolm Porter 1993 – REF 912 Di

Atlas of the World by Philip George 2001 – REF 912 GE

The Harper Collins World Atlas by Barbara Flynn 1994 – REF 912 HA

Maps of the World 1997 – REF 912 MA

National Geographic Picture Atlas of our World 1993 – REF 912 NA

The Atlas of Contemporary America by Roger Doyle 1994 – REF 912.73 DO

Maryland A to Z by Marion Kaminkow 1985 REF 917.52 KA

Science

Macmillian Encyclopedia of the Environment 1997 – REF 333.7 MA

Grolier World Encyclopedia of Endangered Species 1995 – REF333.95 GR

Grolier Encyclopedia of Environmental Concepts and Issues 1996 – REF 363.7 GR

Biomes of the World by Grolier Ed. Firm 1999 – REF 577 BI

Amazing Animals of the World 1995 – REF 591 AM

The Grolier Illustrated Encyclopedia of Animals by Michael Chinery 1994 - REF 591 GR

Endangered Wildlife of the World 1993 – REF 591.52 En

Encyclopedia of Mammals by David Macdonald 1984 – REF 599 En

Macmillian Encyclopedia of Science 1997 – REF 503 MA

New Book of Popular Science 1996 – REF 503 NE

Science in our World 1992 – REF 503 SC

World Book's Young Scientist 1995 – Ref 503 WO

Encyclopedia of Earth Science 1996 – REF 550 EN

Encyclopedia of Earthquakes and Volcanoes by David Ritchie 1994 – REF 551.2 RI

The Complete Weather Resource by Phillis Engelbert1997 – REF 551.5 EN

Weather Watch by Grolier Ed. Corp. 1999 – REF 551.6 WE

ABC's of the Human Body by Readers Digest – REF 612 RE

Diseases – REF 616 Di

Sick! Diseases and Disorders, Injuries and Infections by David Newton – REF 616 Si

The Complete Dog Book by The American Kennel Club – REF 636.7CO

Atlas of Dog Breeds of the World – REF 636.7WI

Macmillian Book of the Marine Aquarium – REF 639.3 DA

Grolier Library of Science Biographies 1997 – REF 500.92 GR

Kids and Science by Ellen Doris 1996 – REF 503 DO

Arts

Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipies of the World by Karen Hanson 2002 – REF 641.3 JU

Looking at Art 1996 – REF 701 LO

Biographical Dictionary of Artists by Lawrence Gowing 1995 – REF 709.2BI

The Book of Art 1994 – REF 709.4 BO

Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians by Theodore Baker 1991 – REF 780.92 Ba

Illustrated Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments – REF 784.19 IL

Play Index by H.W.Wilson 1952 – REF 808.83 PL

Shakespeare A to Z by Charles Boyce 1990 – REF 822.3 BO

Remember this is a partial list only. You may find more in the reference section that are more specific to your topic.

How do I take notes?

You must use the Murray Hill Style Manual for format of note taking. It follows the APA or MLA formats. You can go to sites on the web for these formats, but you need to follow the Murray Hill Style Format. It is often good to use note cards, but you can use line paper as well. Just use one piece of paper for each source. At the top of your page or note card, write a descriptive headline and then write the information about the book or resource in bibliography format below. If it were an encyclopedia, It would look like this:

Yugoslavia

Bliss, Pamela. The World Book Encyclopedia of People and Places. 6 vol. Chicago. World Book Inc., 2002

Underneath take notes about the source. You should try to paraphrase the information, but if you really need to use exact wording, use quotations and remember you must always site the author if you use it in the body of your paper.

How do I find more resources?

Up near the front desk is a set of computers that are used to find materials in the media. It is our Computer Reference Area. You can search for any item in the media by subject or even topic words. Write down the call numbers on scrap paper provided by the computers. Use your map to find their locations. If you do not find enough resources you can also search other Howard County Libraries. Check with your media specialist for availability.

Once you have found your resources, make sure you follow the process in the note taking section above to document the information.

You can also use the Internet to find more sources for research. You need to be careful because the Internet can be very time consuming and you may walk out with little work completed. Start with print sources first and then begin use of the Internet. Remember the books and print materials have already been approved for its accuracy, computer sites have not. You also need to know what are good resources and what are bad resources.

What are good resources and bad resources?

Just because you find a source on the Internet does not mean it is a good source. Often people write their opinions and portray them as facts. You need to examine three aspects about the site as a beginning evaluation of the site and source (Edwards, Judith. The good, the bad and the useless. Ariadne, issue 16. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue16/digital/. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4/18/2003.)

Access – Is the site easy to access and quick to download? How many times has the site been accessed currently? Does a Search Engine show it to be at the top of the list of choices?

Quality – Who is responsible for the site? Who wrote the information on the site? Is the information on the site referenced by other sites? Does the site contain references from other sources? When was this site created and most recently updated?

Use – Is the site easy to use? Can you find your information quickly and specifically? Is the home page easily accessed?

Even positive answers to these questions are no guarantee. If you are unsure, check with your media specialist.

What is copyright and plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the use of someone else's ideas and using them as your own. Any student who plagiarizes material in a research paper is subject to disciplinary action and a possible failing grade. To make sure you are not plagiarizing someone else's material, make sure you summarize your information into your own words, use quotations when you do use exact information and cite your sources of information. For more information on plagiarism go to Capital Community College at http://webster.commnet.edu/mla/plagiarism.shtml for a very concise description of plagiarism.

Copyright is the legal ownership of your produced materials. Many items are copyrighted on the Internet. There are many exceptions for educational uses, such as student research papers. If you are unsure of use of materials you can find out more information at Ten Common Copyright Permission Myths http://www.copylaw.com/articles/copy_myths.html or check with your media specialist.

Final draft and display.

Once you have completed your research, you need to write your paper and present the product. You should always follow the guidelines set for you in class. For grammar and punctuation you should follow the Murray Hill Style Manual. Another source online is through OWL, Perdue University's Online Writing Lab – Writing a Research Paper by Sarah Hamid at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/researchw/