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New Faculty research interests interest us!

faculty, teaching August 25, 2014 Frances Yates, Matt Dilworth mdilwort

We often think about our professors as teachers. They are the authorities in their subjects who know (or know how to find) the right answer. But knowledge doesn’t end when you graduate, whether that’s with a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctorate degree. Our professors are lifelong learners. They continually research, then share their findings with colleagues, through conference presentations and publications. Our faculty are intellectually curious people, and we were interested to find out about the research interests of new faculty. Katherine Miller, assistant professor of anthropology, has research interests in Mesoamerican bioarchaeology (particularly the biological remains of the Maya people), odontometry, biodistance analysis, and biogeochemical analysis; social relationships like kinship, identity, and sociopolitical interaction; and behaviors including cultural body modifications, … Continued

Communications Questions

communications, reference databases, Research, scholarly resources August 18, 2014 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth, Research mdilwort

This summer, we have been exploring in-depth research for each of IU East’s major fields of study, and this week we conclude with communications. The general techniques that we covered in the first week will serve you well here, too, but there is plenty more available. For most research questions you might have, you will want to start with a general communications database. The best choices are Communication & Mass Media Complete or ProQuest Telecommunications, which are easy to use and offer a lot of full text. For e-book sources, try the Media Studies section of OxRef or eBrary. And if you are interested in a journalism perspective, Newspaper Source and ProQuest News and Newspapers are great choices (the latter … Continued

Sociology Questions

reference databases, Research, sociology August 11, 2014 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth, Research mdilwort

Throughout the summer, we’ve been exploring how to do academic-level research in each of the major disciplines IU East offers degrees in. While there are plenty of commonalities and general techniques that we covered in the first week, each discipline has its own dedicated material. This week, we’ll look at the study of sociology. While social theory is most concerned with how things like class, religion, law, and social behavior relate and interact in the present, it is possible that you will be interested in historical social theory, or how social change occurred in the past. If so, a historical database like JSTOR will be ideal. For most research questions, though, you will want a general sociology database. The largest … Continued

Science Questions

reference databases, Research, scholarly resources, science August 4, 2014 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth, Research mdilwort

This summer, we’ve been looking at how to do insightful, quality research at IU East. And while there are great general sources and techniques available that benefit any researcher, each discipline has its own special sources and quirks. This week, we’ll look at the natural sciences. If you’ve been following these columns, you’ll notice that there is some overlap with mathematics, since math is in many ways the ‘language’ of science. People who are good at science often first studied math. Science is an incredibly broad topic, and which scientific discipline you are interested will affect your searching. For example, finding current material (books and articles published in the last few years) is vitally important in most topics of biology … Continued

Psychology Questions

psychology, reference databases, Research, scholarly resources July 28, 2014 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth, Research mdilwort

This week, in our ongoing series on how to do research in the major disciplines at IU East, we will look at psychology. Psychology courses can have a lot of potential research topics – you might be looking for a theorist, a type of treatment, historical issues in psychology, or approach from a mental health perspective. Most types of psychology research are well supported by the general techniques we explored at the beginning of this series. Several databases are tailored for this, including PsycINFO and ProQuest Psychology. If you are interested in a historical topic, a database like JSTOR may also be of value. All of our other psychology-related databases can be found here. So, for example, if we were … Continued

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