Events This Week
At the Library

• Message from the Head Librarian
• Keep Your Library Card Privileges
• Library Lessons
  • Lesson 1:  The Research Problem (Chapter Three)
  • Lesson 2: The Literature Review (Chapter Four)
  • Lesson 3: APA Writing Style
• Circulation Desk
• Next Week at the Library

A Message from
the Head Librarian

Welcome to the First Floor of the Library! Congratulations on your move out of the Lobby Level and onto the First Floor where your Library Lessons each week will consist of exploration, discussion, and application of the first 3 steps in the process of research - Identifying a Research Problem, Reviewing the Literature, and Specifying a Purpose and Research Questions or Hypotheses. Even though you have moved up to the First Floor, please do not forget all that is offered for you on the Lobby Level and that you will likely visit on your entry to or exit from the Library each week - Information and Circulation Desks, Reading and Reference Rooms, Library Events and the Lounge, etc.

Most seem to be finding their way around the library and are happy with the communication and quick replies. Coming to a new library and having to orient yourself quickly is never easy. As you become accustomed to the format of the library I hope you will be able to use your time efficiently and effectively while you are here. Many are overwhelmed by the amount of information. This is a natural feeling when coming into an all new environment. I think most of you will find that the environment will become somewhat mundane after a few weeks with everything looking the same. Some of you will find this very comforting. Remember that the info provided on these 3 pages each week (this is page 1, then you click at the bottom to go to page two and so on) provides you with how you should structure your work each week. I expect you will visit other pages as needed but these 3 main pages are what you will focus on. Also, there is no need to continuously log in to eLearning unless you plan on taking a quiz or posting and replying in the discussions. I will not post separate information there so do not worry about having to always check both the course website and eLearning.

I had a few questions regarding the login so I will address this here. First, there is really no login to this course. You do not have to go to elearning and log in to get to the library. You can actually go straight to the library within the web browser by typing in the url given to you in the opening of the elearning site. Once you have done this then simply bookmark it and you will always be only one click away from the research library.

I have read the week one posts to the icebreaker. We have quite a cast of characters in this course. Many of you did a great job of not only reading and replying to others' posts but also to those who responded to you. Everyone seems to be doing well and I hope the great posts continue.

I believe I have provided each of you that submitted a reaction paper with some feedback to your paper. I enjoyed reading them. They gave me a better picture of who you are and what your goals will be throughout the course. If I somehow missed someone please let me know.

This week I am issuing the following reminders:

Circulation Desk:
In general, I am a pretty kind librarian. I know everyone would like to know exactly at Thursday @ 5 if I have any overdue items that need your attention. If you think about this, you can see the impossibility of this really happening (especially when some of you will be making a mad dash at the last minute to finish:-). Things are not due until then and while I am pretty good, I am not THAT good. If I continually kept up with everything each individual did every day that is all I would do all day every day. It is most efficient for me to wait until Wednesday evening when the due date and time is past to begin working on checklists. I certainly try to get the checklists up as soon as I can after that but I make no promises except that it will be up by Friday. On occasion, I expect there might be something that you forget and you will not realize it until the checklist is updated. Don't fret...just send me an email, explain the oversight and get it done. I am rather understanding when such situations arise as long as it is not habitual. In return, there will be occasion when I might overlook something and you should feel free to send me an email to check into it.

Final reminder this week and this is a MUST READ!!! This week gets confusing for some people because it is the first week where you are really getting down and dirty with some difficult assignments and there seems like a lot to do (and there is). Everything this week is interrelated and they build on one another so complete each lesson before going to the next one. In the first lesson you will take the quiz and decide on a research problem to study and about which you will write your proposal (the main project in this course). You will post this to the discussion. In your second lesson you will take the quiz and find 2 empirical research articles on your research topic you decided on in lesson 1. You will send these two articles to me IN APA FORMAT (which means you will likely need to type it in Word and send as an attachment to make sure your formatting is not lost in email). I will check these articles and make sure they are empirical and refereed and in APA format and send feedback on any corrections needed. You will need to make corrections in the next week to get credit. Finally, in your final lesson you will choose one of the articles you found in lesson 2 and identify the elements of the statement of the problem in that article. THERE IS A SAMPLE OF THIS ASSIGNMENT provided for you in this lesson - DO NOT ATTEMPT to complete this assignment without looking at the sample - YOU WILL HAVE TO REDO the assignment if you do not format it correctly using APA so FOLLOW THE SAMPLE I PROVIDED. The sample is there to make your life easier, to let you see what is expected, to keep you from having a redo so please, please use it. IF you have not figured this out already you CANNOT sit down next Thursday morning and get all of this done - PLEASE, PLEASE do not wait until the last minute to do the lessons this week - it will be a recipe for failure and stress. You will think me a cruel person for giving you this work this week if you try to complete it at the last minute (you might still think that but at least I warned you:-)

APA Tidbit

This week's APA tidbit is illustrated by a quote from page vii of the Galvan textbook.

This book was written for students who are required to "do library research" and write literature reviews as term papers in content-area classes in the social and behavioral sciences.

In this sentence the double quote marks set off three words (do library research) as having some special meaning the author wants to convey to the reader.  Several other words and phrases are set off on page viii.  If Galvan were strictly adhering to APA writing conventions, is he correctly using the double quote marks?  If not, what should he do?  Check out pages 82, 83, 100, and 101 of the APA Manual for guidelines to answer these two questions.  We will begin the chat on Thursday by exploring your answers and the use of double quote marks in your writing for assignments in the course.

The Galvan text was recommended, not required.  I do plan to refer to some material in it from time to time.  If you purchased Galvan, please e-mail me a confirmation.  If you did not purchase it, do not e-mail me.  Your response will help guide my reference to it.

Our goals this week are to:

• describe and outline the requirements of the exhibits (assignments) you will display in this course
• identify a problem in which you are currently interested and evaluate if the problem is researchable
• begin the process of justifying your research problem based on past research and personal experience
• identify the audience for which your research is intended
• evaluate other researchers' "Statement of the Problem"
• write a research problem statement
• search for and identify at empirical, refereed articles related to your research topic and receive approval
• apply appropriate criteria to assess the relevance of the empirical articles you find
• begin constructing your own literature map for your research topic based on the articles you begin to identify
• be able to apply APA guidelines including: title page, header, levels of headings, reference page, end-of-text references, and within-text references using the Fifth Edition APA Manual (the one you bought for this course)
  

Don't Forget Your
Library Card!

Task #1:
Download, view, and/or print instructions for setting indents in MS^® Word (if you do not know how to set first-line or hanging indents): Setting Indents in MS Word (99 KB PDF file)

Task #2:
Download, view, and/or print instructions for inserting page numbers in Word documents (if you do not know how to set up automatic page numbering): Inserting Page Numbers in MS Word (3.12 MB PDF file)

Task #3:
Review some of the resources available to facilitate your search for research articles: Finding Research Articles.

Contact the
Library Staff

Need Help?

Have a question but can't find the answer? Here are some options:

• Check the Course FAQ page to see if your question has already been answered.
• Check the Proposal FAQ page to see if your question has already been answered.
• Email the Head Librarian (Dr. Curda)*.
• Email the Assistant Librarian (Melissa)*.
• Check with the other library patrons.

*Remember to include your name and the course name (Educational Research) or number (EDF 6481) in your message.

Go to the Library Lessons for the Week
(Page 2)