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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

Math Questions

mathematics, reference databases, Research July 21, 2014 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth, Research mdilwort

This week, we will continue our series on the research needs of the major disciplines taught at IU East with a look at mathematics. People approach math for numerous reasons – studying historical mathematics or mathematicians, practical math (including solving problems and learning formulas), using math as a ‘language’ for another discipline, such as engineering or one of the sciences, or for researching new or unproven hypotheses. Studying these disparate elements requires different approaches. Math is also a diverse field, and the needs and goals of, say, calculus are much different from those of geometry or statistics. They use a common ‘language’, but their purpose and what each subfield describes are quite distinct. Some tacks are similar to research performed … Continued

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