Blog #8 3/29/2010

Before coming to Washington State University, the sources that I would most often use were online sources, books from the library and text books. I would usually always use online sources because they were the easiest way to find a lot of information on a specific topic, however, now I realized that these sources weren’t probably always reliable. Library books I used rarely because I hated searching for books but the information was definitely more reliable. Now that I am attending Washington State University I was introduced to the WSU library web page and how to find millions of sources from this web page without ever having to go to the library. For my English 101 Papers that I need good research information for I will use the EBSCO research web page which helps me find good sources and fast. I will simple type the subject of the information I need into the search bar and plenty of useful sources appear. To make sure that they apply directly to my paper I open up each link to the source and read the preview of the paper, if it sounds applicable I then open the paper or article and read the entire thing, searching for information that I would like to include in my paper. Another source I use for my English 101 papers is required readings for the course such as “Omnivores Dilemma” written by Michael Pollan. These readings are required for a reason and therefore should be a good source for my papers. Contrary to my research habits in high school, I rarely use online sources now. I am usually able to find way better sources through EBSCO. I could further improve my methods for finding sources by narrowing down my search topic or searching more words at one time when using EBSCO. Doing this will give me better results that are more focused on the specific information I am looking for rather than a very broad topic.