In this module, we discuss the following topics.

Information involves creating and sharing knowledge, something humans have done for millennia. It evolved from paintings on cave walls, the creation of paper and the printing press, to today's digital information revolution.

Information today is created and shared using sophisticated technologies, but the basic premise remains the same: information is created in the form of ideas, facts, or data, transmitted to others, stored and then accessed, and used to generate new information.

The types of information available are as varied as are the creators of information. Here are a few types of information creation:

• a scientist generating data based on observations of planets
• a government's census of its citizens and industry
• elementary school students tracking weather patterns around the world and creating a class Web page of maps

All of these types of information are created and made accessible to others to create new knowledge.

It is often said that we live in an Information Age. As technology has enabled more people to create and distribute information, more information is being created than ever before. It has been estimated that between 1750 and 1900 humankind's knowledge doubled, then doubled again from 1900–1950, and then again from 1960–1965, and at least once again every five years since 1965 (Brevik, 1998, p. 1).

To be a good researcher, you must be able to locate, organize, evaluate, and communicate information. Learning to navigate and effectively use this ever expanding universe of information is a challenge for everyone, whether a college student, businessperson, or informed citizen.

Libraries help make the universe of knowledge more manageable by collecting, organizing, and providing access to information. Libraries traditionally functioned as storage facilities for print resources such as books and manuscripts. With advances in the technology for storing and retrieving information, libraries now manage information in many formats, including print, microfilm, videos, compact disks, digital files, and the World Wide Web. Today libraries not only store information created in the past, they also provide access to new information.

Libraries are a primary resource for conducting academic research. Learning how to effectively use them and their resources is important to understanding the research process. To become adept at locating and using information for research, you must know about the many different resources available to you. Libraries provide access to information through print materials, electronic databases and catalogs, and Internet resources. Understanding how to select and use the appropriate resources for specific information needs is the key to successful research.

Bolner and Poirier recommend that you follow these eight steps of the research process.

As mentioned previously, in this course we will discuss only those steps that involve gathering, evaluating, and documenting sources. In this module, we will address the first two steps. We will discuss steps 4, 5 and 8 in subsequent modules.

The first step in the research process is selecting a topic. For this course, and for the purposes of developing your research log, we have provided three topics for you to select from for developing the research log. You will select from the three topics in Step 1 of the research log. The research log form you will use for this course is available from the WebTycho Class Menu.

Although Bolner and Poirier recommend that you do a preliminary library search before making a final selection of a topic for a research paper, we have not yet introduced you to the tools (library catalogs, periodical indexes, and so on) you will need to use. Therefore, we will not require you to do a preliminary search. However, we encourage you to try a preliminary search using resources you may already be comfortable with from previous experience.

Learning Activity 2 asks you to formulate a thesis statement and select keywords to search. After trying a search with your chosen keywords, you will be ready to finalize your thesis statement for your research log.

The following are two factors to consider in formulating a thesis.

1. Who is your audience?
2. What is the scope of your topic?

Determining your audience will help determine the level of research and the types of materials you select. For example, if you select a topic such as diabetes, your audience could be people who suffer from diabetes. Therefore, the types of resources you find and plan to use should be written for laypeople and not in medical jargon that only a physician would understand. Remember, all the resources you select should support your thesis statement.

Developing a thesis statement also requires you to determine the scope of your topic. For example, if you are selecting a broad topic, such as the history of a particular country, you may want to narrow it in your thesis statement to a particular aspect of this history such as the founding of the country or the cultural history of a particular segment of the population. It is acceptable to broaden or narrow the scope of your original topic as you do the research. In fact, the best thesis statements are those that are refined after an initial search or two. To help you refine your statement, you may want to ask yourself the following questions.

• Did you find too much? Then narrow the statement.
  
• Did you find too little? Then expand the parameters of your research.
  
• Did you fail to find anything? Then it is probably a good idea to check your spelling. Is it possible your topic is very recent? If so, perhaps you selected databases that do not include enough current event information. Try alternate databases and see if they provide more materials.

The search process will indicate how widely and deeply your topic is covered and whether it will be a manageable topic for this course and the research log assignment.

Once you have chosen one of the three topics provided in the research log and devised a thesis statement, it is time to select search terms for use in UMUC's library databases via MdUSA (which is the University System of Maryland's access point for library databases), the Internet, and library catalogs.

Here are the steps to take in selecting search terms.

2. Write down the dates that are relevant to your topic. How far back do you need to go? Is the topic very current?
   
3. What about geographic location? Do you need to consider any special geographic locations in your search on your topic? If so, write those down also to help you select your search terms.
   
4. Think about synonyms and antonyms. What search terms are similar to your topic? For example, for the topic global warming, you might also use the term climate change as a related keyword search term. As for antonyms, what terms are the opposites of global warming? Might you also search the term global cooling?
   
5. Consider different forms of the word such as book or books or woman or women. What forms of the word might help you in your search?

Here is a sample table illustrating how to plan the selection of your search terms.

Having created a thesis statement and selected search terms based on it, it's a good idea to begin to track your research activities by preparing a plan or blueprint. If you carefully track your research, you will likely find more relevant information and spend less time searching. Doing so will help you

A research log is an effective tool for mapping out your research activities and helping you keep track of the research you've done. It can be in whatever format you prefer—print, electronic, or note cards. What the log looks like is much less important than ensuring it works well for you. Therefore, take some time to think about how you would keep a research log and what format would work best for your needs.

We have developed a template for your research log for this course that you will use to make entries as you go through the steps of formulating a thesis statement, finding materials, evaluating them, and citing them properly. To begin, review the Creating Your Research Log section in Thiroux (1999, chapter 2), which you will find in the Reserve Reading section of this course.

Once you have reviewed the Thiroux materials, think about how you would create a research log of your own for this course and for courses throughout your academic career. Then, review the research log assignment description, the completed sample log, and the log form you will use for this course. You may also want to print a copy of the blank log to use as a reference. Once you have reviewed the Thiroux materials, the completed sample log, and the log assignment instructions, you will be better prepared for the steps involved in creating a research log of your own for this course and for courses throughout your academic career.

Here are the steps to follow when you develop a research log.

• Identify your topic.
• Develop your thesis statement.
• Select your search terms.
• Select the resources you will use to find information on your topic.
• Search the selected resources with your chosen search terms.
• Evaluate these resources.
• Cite sources properly.

To search the contents of a database, construct a search statement using various commands to connect the keywords you have selected. These commands should include one or more of the following:

• keywords or terms, such as those that describe the topic you are searching for, or the author's name
• truncation symbols, such as ? or !
• wildcard symbols, such as *
• limiting
• Boolean operators, such as AND, OR, and NOT
• positional operators, such as ADJ
• stopwords
• nesting

We explain each of these commands in more depth later in this section. The types of commands available vary from one database to the next, and databases use different symbols and words to represent these commands. We will provide examples of these variations in the following discussion.

Sometimes, if you depend on keywords, you may not understand why you retrieve certain items. But you will find the keyword search a good place to begin when looking for information on a topic if you are aware of its limitations.

Bolner and Poirier discuss truncation, which is the ability to search alternate endings or spellings to a keyword search term by using a symbol such as an asterisk, a question mark, or a dollar sign within the word or at the end of the search term, for example

Bolner and Poirier discuss how you can add truncation symbols to your keywords to retrieve multiple forms of a word in a database search.

Many electronic databases perform some type of automatic truncation. For example, the database may automatically search for the singular and plural form of a keyword. You will need to read the help screens of databases to determine if truncation is automatic or if you need to use a symbol to truncate keywords.

Note that the truncation symbols vary from one database to the next. For example, some databases use the exclamation point (!) as a truncation symbol, whereas other databases use the question mark (?) or asterisk (*). Again, be sure to read the help screens the databases provide to learn about these symbols.

If there are alternate spellings of a word, you can use a wildcard symbol to search for different spellings at the same time. A wildcard symbol is used to represent only one character and can be used in the middle or at the end of a keyword.

Bolner and Poirier refer to limiting a search. Limiting can be helpful when you retrieve too many documents or if you want to limit the retrieval to a specific search field in a database. In many databases, including MdUSA, it is possible to limit your search by using a chosen field (e.g., author, title, publication title, or subject heading).

When you limit your retrieval to a particular field, your search will be focused, and you will likely retrieve fewer records as a result. So, for instance, if you wanted to find all the articles written by Michael Porter, it would make sense to enter the name, michael porter and then limit the search to only those records where michael porter appears as the author. Or, if you wanted to see only articles from the Harvard Business Review, it makes sense to limit the search by the publication title and enter the name Harvard Business Review as part of your search.

Limiting is a powerful tool that is often misunderstood or overlooked. We recommend you try limiting your search and see if it doesn't help you do a better search that is more focused on your needs.

Most databases allow you to use a set of connectors called Boolean operators in your search statements. These connectors or operators are

• AND
• OR
• NOT

We will now explain their functions.

AND is used to connect the different keywords in your search. This connector narrows your search by requiring that the records the search retrieves contain both keywords. For example, the search statement

would retrieve only records that have both the word internet and the word marketing. This criterion forces the search mechanism to exclude those records that include only one keyword. Note that some databases use alternate symbols in place of the AND connector, such as the plus sign (+).

Click on the yellow arrow below to see this concept illustrated.

The animation illustrates that the search statement internet AND marketing retrieves only those records that contain both keywords.

OR is used to connect synonyms or related keywords. It broadens your search by providing alternate keywords to be searched. For example, the search statement

would retrieve records that contained either of these keywords. Note that some databases use alternate symbols such as the pipe sign ( | ) in place of the OR connector.

Click on the yellow arrow below to see this concept illustrated.

The animation illustrates that the search statement internet OR web retrieves all records that contain either the keyword internet or the keyword web. Some of the records may actually contain both words.

NOT is used to eliminate records that contain certain keywords. It narrows your search by ignoring any record containing the keyword indicated. For example, the search statement

would retrieve only the records that have the word internet but not the word web. Note that some databases use alternate symbols or words in place of the NOT connector, such as AND NOT or the minus sign (–).

Click on the yellow arrow below to see this concept illustrated.

The animation illustrates that no records that contained the keyword web were included, even if they contained the keyword internet. We recommend that you use the NOT connector sparingly, because using it may cause you to leave out relevant records.

Test your understanding of these Boolean operators by trying Learning Activity 1, which gives you practice using the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT.

Bolner and Poirier discuss another type of connector, positional operators. Examples of positional operators, sometimes referred to as proximity operators, are

• ADJ
• ADJ#
• WITH (or W/#)
• SAME

Use positional operators in place of the AND connector in search statements to

1. indicate the order in which keywords must appear in a record
2. indicate how close together the keywords must be for the record to be retrieved

Positional operators are especially useful when you are searching a full-text database because requiring that your keywords appear closer together physically in the full text of a document usually means that they are closer together conceptually.

For example, if you search a full-text database using the search statement

the two keywords may be in completely different sections of the article and have no relation to each other. If, instead, you search the database using the search statement

you are requiring the database to retrieve only those records that contain the keyword internet within five words of the keyword marketing. In other words, there can be up to five intervening words between your keywords. This search statement would retrieve articles that contain the following phrases:

• marketing on the Internet
• use of the Internet in marketing
• use of marketing techniques that incorporate Internet sites

We recommend that if you try searching a database using the AND connector between two keywords and you retrieve a large number of records that do not seem relevant, try using positional operators in your search statement.

For example, if you search a database using the search statement

you will probably retrieve hundreds of records. If you search a database using the search statement

you will retrieve much fewer records, perhaps fewer than 100.

Stopwords are words that should not be used in a search statement because the database does not index them. See Bolner and Poirier for more information. Examples of stopwords are

• a
• the
• for
• to

Different databases have different stopwords, so be sure to read the help screens provided.

Once you have selected the keywords to use in your search and the Boolean or positional operators with which to connect them, you may consider using nesting to construct your search. Essentially, nesting involves putting parentheses around groups of synonyms so the search statement will be interpreted correctly. Without the parentheses, the computer combines terms from left to right without considering meaning. Parentheses are usually used with keywords connected by OR.

For example, suppose you wanted to find information on Web marketing. You can use Internet as a synonym for Web. You will want all records retrieved to contain the keyword marketing. These records should also contain either of the keywords web or internet (or both).

Suppose we did not use parentheses in our search statement, as follows:

The database would first process marketing AND web, indicated by the colored area in the figure below:

Then, it would process the results obtained with the connector OR and the keyword internet. The colored area in the figure below represents all the records retrieved:

As you can see, the search statement marketing AND web OR internet retrieved records that contained both the keywords marketing and web plus any records that contained the keyword internet. This result is not what we wanted.

Nesting can drastically alter your search results. Suppose we use parentheses, as follows:

The database would first process web OR internet (parentheses are processed first), indicated by the colored area:

and then process marketing with the results above to get the colored area in the figure below:

Only the Web and Internet records that also had the keyword marketing would be retrieved.

In summary,

The Internet is fast becoming the first stop in searching. Although the information available on the "free" Web may not be of as high quality as that found in journal databases, such as UMUC's library databases, the popularity of searching on the Web cannot be disputed. Bolner and Poirier discuss the steps for successful searching on the Internet.

You may already be searching using an Internet search engine. If you are, you may be amazed to discover that you can actually influence what you retrieve and improve your retrieval by understanding how search engines find documents on the Internet.

Bolner and Poirier provide a good descriptive table giving the basic search commands to use with the more popular search engines. Please refer to it to improve your retrieval and to become more efficient in searching with these tools.

Search engines use algorithms to sort the results and rank them according to relevancy. Bolner and Poirier refer to this process as "natural language search" in their discussion. When you search the Internet, you expect the most relevant sites to appear at the top of the list. But, is that actually the case?

Let's examine how a search engine finds documents to determine what we actually retrieve when we search the Internet. How does the computer decide which sites are "relevant"? Most search tools do not reveal their ranking formulas—they consider them proprietary information, "a secret formula." They do, however, share some elements of the criteria they use to rank the results. Their process is known as relevancy ranking

Some elements considered in ranking the results are:

1. Number of terms matched

Web pages containing all of the search terms will be ranked higher than Web pages with only some of the search terms.

2. Proximity of terms to each other

Web pages where the terms appear closer to each other—that is, in the same section, paragraph, or sentence—will be ranked higher than Web pages with the terms separated.

3. Location of terms within the document

4. Frequency of terms in the document

Take a look at the review of relevancy ranking provided by the Search Engine Report at searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/rank.html. There, you will find more interesting tidbits about how Internet documents are ranked and how the ranking process affects your results.

So, how do you do a keyword search? Here are a few tips to help you search the Internet more effectively.

With a little knowledge about your search engine, you can lessen the number of irrelevant items retrieved and improve your search results dramatically.

In later modules, we will review in more detail the specifics of Web searching, and you will be able to try different techniques for searching the Internet effectively. For now, a basic understanding of relevancy ranking is important.

Now that you understand the commands, symbols, and other search techniques, let's discuss how you will put them together in a search strategy. For example, our sample thesis statement might be the following:

The keywords from this thesis statement are:

Retail might be another keyword, but you should usually try to limit your search to a maximum of three keywords at a time. Use additional keywords only if you need to further narrow your search because you don't want to limit your search too much in the beginning. If you use four keywords in your search, you might end up with no results.

The next step is to think of synonyms or related terms for these keywords. Here are the related terms for our sample search.

Try to think of at least one alternate term for each of your keywords. Once you have this list of keywords and synonyms, think about how you will combine them. Then you are ready to start searching for information on your topic. As you search each database, be sure to look for additional terms that can help you in your search.

Learning activity 2 will give you an opportunity to develop a list of keywords and related terms for your search and combine them in a search statement.

In module 2, we will discuss electronic resources, including UMUC's subscription databases. As you learn more about specific databases, we will introduce additional search strategies.

Bolner, M., & Poirier, G. (1997). The research process: Books and beyond.
Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.

Brevik, P. (1998). Student learning in the Information Age.
Phoenix: The Oryx Press.

Learning More

The research log provides a systematic means to do research. In creating a research log, you detail the processes you follow to

• develop a topic
• create a thesis statement
• identify search terms
• conduct research
• find resources
• evaluate and cite resources properly

This log provides an important record of the steps you took to do your research and the end result of your efforts. In this course, you will create a research log in systematic parts, comprising the following sections.

1. Topic selection—For this course, three topics are available for your research statement. You will select one of them to research.
   
2. Thesis statement formulation—Once you have decided which topic you want to use for the log, you can formulate your thesis statement. Refer to page 31 of the Thiroux text to learn more about how to do so. You may also find the information on page 32 of the Bolner text helpful in conceiving a thesis statement. Once you have developed this statement, you are ready to think about how to search for materials on your topic.
   
3. Search statements—For this project, you need to search at least one search tool on the Web, one UMUC library subscription database, and one library catalog. Provide the search statements you intend to use to search in the research resources of your choice. List the keywords you selected and include any search commands you used, such as truncation, nesting, or adjacency.
   
4. Evaluation of the materials you find when you conduct your searches—It is important to evaluate the sources you find on the Web, in the library subscription databases, and in the library catalog. For this section of the log, evaluate one Web resource, one journal article from the library subscription databases, and one book, answering the questions posed in the research log regarding the authority, comprehensiveness, reliability, and currency of each resource.
   
5. Citations and annotations—Once you have evaluated the three resources for your log, provide a complete citation for each item following the appropriate formats in Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5^th edition. Note: You will not be able to indent or italicize your citations using the log form template. To receive full credit on Step 5 of the log, all of the elements of a citation need to be present in the correct order and format appropriate to the resource (e.g. Web document or journal article) according to the APA citation guidelines. You should also provide in your own words an annotation for each resource that summarizes the content of the item and explains how the resource relates to your thesis.

The best time to document sources is when you are actually using them. It can be very difficult to go back at a later date to relocate your sources.

Step 1. Decide what type of resource you are using - a book? a web site? a magazine? an interview?

Step 2. Find the example in this brochure, or look it up in the APA manual.

Step 3. Write your citation, following the appropriate examples. Use the proper punctuation, but remember,your source might not have all of the parts listed in the guidelines and examples.

Due to space constraints, the citations in this handout are not double-spaced; however, APA style requires that the text of the paper and the references list must be double-spaced.

The most common types of sources are listed in this brochure, but for explanations and examples of other types of sources, please ask your instructor, or refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.) (Ref BF76.7 .P83 2001).

Chitty, D. (1996). Do lemmings commit suicide? Beautiful hypotheses and ugly facts. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rosellini, G., & Worden, M. (1997). Of course you're angry: A guide to dealing with the emotions of substance abuse (Rev. ed.). Center City, MN: Hazelden.

Children's Express. (1993). Voices from the future: Our children tell us about violence in America. New York: Crown.

The Koran. (1974). New York: Crescent Books.

Moen, P., Elder, G., & Luscher, K. (Eds.). (1995). Examining lives in context: Perspectives on the ecology of human development. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Jeffrey, I. (1988). Introduction. In B. Savelev, Secret city: Photographs from the USSR (pp. 8-12). New York: Thames and Hudson.

Hoff, R. (1992). I can see you naked : A new revised edition of the national bestseller on making fearless presentations (New rev. ed.). Kansas City, MO: Andrews and McMeel.

Pasachoff, J. (1992). Field guide to the stars and planets (3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Updike, J. (1996). A & P. In M. Meyer (Ed.), The Bedford introduction to literature: Reading, thinking and writing (pp. 487-491). Boston: St. Martin's Press.

Tavris, C. (1989). Queen bee syndrome. In Women's studies encyclopedia (Vol. 1, p. 307). New York: Greenwood Press.

Eschatology. (1982). In Webster's new world dictionary of the American language (2nd ed.). New York: Simon and Schuster.

Schlager, N. (Ed.). (1994-1999). How products are made: An illustrated guide to product manufacturing (Vols. 1-4). Detroit, MI: Gale Research.

Mills, L. (1996). Architecture of the Old South (Vols. 1-2). Savannah, GA: Beehive Foundation.

Author's name. (Year). Title of article. Title of journal or journal, volume number, page numbers.
[Note: The issue number is not included if all the issues in the volume have continuous pagination that continue through all the issues of the volume.]

Watson, J. D., & Crick, F. H. (1953). A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature, 171, 737-738.

Jasper, W. F. (1997). Good cop, bad cop: Alarming expansion and bad police work define today's FBI. The New American, 13, 234-239.

Jones, H. M. (1997). The attractions of stupidity. The St. Croix Review, 30(2), 6-10.

Gerry, R.. (1997, April-June). Tempo training for freestyle. Swimming Technique, 34(1), 40-42.

Munsey, C., & Shuey, P. J. (1997, May 8). Bomb threats to become felony. The Capital, p. A1.

Krauthammer, C. (2002, April 25). Why feed a mortal enemy? [Editorial]. The Washington Post, p. A27.

Student health insurance policy. (2002, May 23). Anne Arundel College Campus Crier, p. 1.

Wrathall, J. (1997). [Review of the film That thing you do!]. Sight and Sound, 7, 57.

Reviewer's name. (Year, Month Day). Title of review [Review of the book/film Title of book or movie]. Title of newspaper, pp. [pages].

Maslin, J. (2001, December 11). Shakespeare saw a therapist? [Review of the movie Shakespeare in love]. The New York Times, p. E16.

Jitpraphai, S. (2001). Financial variables and merger premiums: Evidence from bank mergers. Dissertation Abstracts International, 62 (9), 3134A. (UMI No. AAT 3025476) Retrieved June 22, 2002, from Digital Dissertations database.

Bi, W. (2001). Knowledge discovery by attribute-oriented approach under directed acyclic concept graph (DACG) (Doctoral dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, 2001). Dissertation Abstracts International, 62 (11), 5195B.

Johnson, D. (2001). Designing bibliographic instruction online and face to face (Doctoral dissertation, University of Central Ohio, 2000). Dissertation Abstracts International, 62 (8), 4672A.

Bernardi, R. A. (1990). Accounting pronouncements, firm size, and firm industry: Their effect on Altman's bankruptcy prediction model. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Nova University, Fort Lauderdale, FL.

[Note that dissertations before 1994 are from Nova University rather than Nova Southeastern University.]

Patterson, G. W. (2000). A comparison of multi-year instructional programs (looping) and regular education program utilizing scale scores in reading. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.

Sanford, C. A. (1997). Working from within the classroom: Improving the delivery of speech-language services to kindergarten at-risk students. Unpublished doctoral practicum, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED420967) Retrieved December 21, 2001, from ERIC E-Subscribe database.

Digby, K. E. (1985). A comparison of the characteristics of successful and non-successful associate degree nursing students. Unpublished doctoral major applied research project, Nova University, Fort Lauderdale, FL.

[Note: If this is indexed in ERIC, you also need the ERIC ED number. If you obtain it full text online, you also need the retrieval statement.]

Brown, M. (2001). Increasing participation of female students in physical science class. Unpublished master's action research project, St. Xavier
University, Smithtown, IL. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED455121) Retrieved December 24, 2001, from ERIC E-Subscribe database.

Government publications
Treat the government department, office, agency, or institute that produced the report as the author. If the organization that produced the report is not well known, precede with the higher organization. (Year). Title of publication (Report number). Place of publication: Publisher.

U.S. Department of Justice. (1995). Correctional populations of the United States, 1992. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Shafer, L. (1999). Data sources on lifelong learning available from the National Center for Education Statistics (GPO No: ED 1.310/2/:431892). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Note that it is DC without periods like state abbreviations, but U.S. has the periods

Schafer, L. L. (1999). Data sources on lifelong learning available from the National Center for Education Statistics. Work paper series (NCES-WP-1999-11). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED431892)

[Note: This record was located in ERIC. The previous citation was for the very same resource but the information was located in the GPO database. Note the similarity in the ED and GPO numbers.]

Health, Services, and Human Services Division, General Accounting Office. (1998). Suicide prevention: Efforts to increase research and education in palliative care. Report to congressional requesters (GAO/HEHS-98-128). Washington, DC: General Accounting Office. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED420832)

McKay, K., & Sorenson, B. (1999). How to use ERIC to search your special education topic: Update 1999. ERIC Digest E573. Reston, VA: ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 434456) Retrieved December 12, 2001, from the ERIC database.

Parks, W., & Odom, S. L. (2000, June-July). Reflections on community-based inclusive preschools. Paper presented at the Head Start National Research Conference, Washington, DC. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED450938)

Enhancing education through technology: New tools to close the achievement gap. Satellite town meeting #79: May 15, 2001. [Videotape]. (2001). (Available from ED Pubs, P.O. Box 1398, Jessup, MD, 20794-1398) (ERIC Document Reproduction No. ED435672)

Education Development Center. (2001). Districts on the move: Unified student service in Boston public schools: Building a continuum of services through standards-based reform. (National Institute for Urban School Improvement, Education Development Center, Inc., 55 Chapel Street, Newton, MA, 02458.) (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED455329)

Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. (2001). Art of the Pacific Islands [CD-ROM]. (Available from Pacific Resources for Education and Learning,
1099 Alakea Street, 25th floor, Honolulu, HI 96813-4513) (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED422222)

Hoffman, L. M. (2001). Key statistics on public elementary and secondary schools and agencies: School year 1997-98. Survey report (NCES-2001-304R). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED452279) Retrieved December 23, 2001, from ERIC E-Subscribe database.

Gibson, C. C. (1995). Impact of the larger social context on the distance learner. International Council for Distance Education: One world many voices: Quality in open and distance learning (pp. 279-282). Chicago: Milton Keynes.

Martins, J. R. (1999, April). Working with the terminally ill: An integrated theoretical model. Paper presented at the American Counseling Association World Conference, San Diego, CA.

Kelly, J. (1997, March). Effects of traditional and professional development school preservice training models on teacher attrition after three years. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED408256) Retrieved June 22, 2002, from ERIC E-Subscribe database.

APA does not recommend including personal communications because of the difficulty of recovering them at a later time.

Jarre, K., Carr, P. (Producers), & Sommers, S. (Director). (1999). The mummy [Videotape]. MCA Universal Home Video.

Garwood, S. (Producer). (1998, December 31). EastEnders [Television program]. Clarksville, MD: BBC America.

Lucio, L, & Tuñón, J. T. (2001). Designing library instruction for international online students. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Last updated: 12/16/2002 17:02:11

Political Science Writing Center
Smith 220B
(206) 616-3895

• Your thesis goes in the introductory paragraph. Don't hide it; make it clearly asserted at the beginning of your paper.
• Your thesis must make an argument. It is the road map to the argument you will subsequently develop in your paper.

The key difference between an opinion statement and thesis statement is that a thesis conveys to the reader that the claim being offered has been thoroughly explored and is defendable by evidence. It answers the "what" question (what is the argument?) and it gives the reader a clue as to the "why" question (why is this argument the most persuasive?).

Examples of good thesis statements:

• "The ability to purchase television advertising is essential for any candidate's bid for election to the Senate because television reaches millions of people and thus has the ability to dramatically increase name recognition."
• The organizational structure of the United Nations, namely consensus voting in the security council, makes it incapable of preventing war between major powers."