Mr. Berube's Research Tips

Overview:  Below you will find the helpful tips and resources Mr. Berube shared with our class.

Resources

• Get an E-Card from the Boston Public Library.

• From Boston Public Library:  Search under Literature, Books, and Reading, including Gale Virtual Reference Library - Contains over 1,000 volumes of scholarly reference.

• Google Scholar - In the top left hand corner, you can also save and organize information.

• Andover High School - ProQuest Ebook Central

Tips

• Ripping the Guts from a Text - A quick way to "read" a text during the research process.  Read the preface, table of contents, as well as the introduction and conclusion of each chapter.

• IF - The "influence factor" is important.  You can find out the importance of a source by how many scholars use it as a reference. It is not just about the source.  It's tracing it back, and finding the history and context around the subject. Look for "Cited by" in your Google search and it will give you a number of times it has been cited.

• Review of Literature - This is a good search phrase that may point you to collections of scholarly journals, biographies, etc.

• Peer Review of Journal - This search will help you see what groups of scholars are writing about sources to see if it has literary merit.

• Book Reviews - This is a good search phrase to use. Often a collection of major texts will come out at a time, and a researcher will review all the texts.  For example, there is a review of three Bronte biographies in The Atlantic Monthly.  Reading the review will give you a breadth of information on the books, as well as knowledge of the recent and past scholarship.