• Purpose of the assignment.
• Due date of the assignment.
• Resources required by your instructor.
• Resources available at the TCU Library.

Step 2. Evaluating your topic -- what are the main issues associated with your topic?

• Evaluate your topic using background information.
• Use subject encyclopedias, class notes, reserve readings, and textbooks to supply background information, facts, and bibliographies.
• You make the call! Is there is enough valid information available to support your selected topic? If not, try another.

• Use the background information you have gathered to refine your point of view.
• Make use of the language/vocabulary within your topic.

Be sure to make note of which indexes and databases you have used. Assemble a usable, complete citation for every resource listed in your bibliography. Need a style manual? Go to: Style Guides. Hint: The Style Guides also contain examples of how to cite sources from the World Wide Web and other electronic sources.

• How to find articles in journals / periodicals / newspapers:

  • Your choices: An electronic article index database or a print index.

  • Finding current articles: Use an electronic periodical index, such as Academic Search Premier. (These, and other resources can be found on the Library's home page under the Alphabetical List of Databases. These databases contain a variety of full text articles, citations, abstracts. 

  • Finding older articles: Some print indexes that cover distant years are available, ask a reference librarian to locate information that pre-dates the electronic abstract and indexes. Hint: Be sure to check the Bound Periodicals Room (just West of the Current Periodicals room) for the back issues.

  • The World Wide Web contains may organizational and education institution sites. In a pinch, try using a Google.com to search for corporate/business home pages.

• Find Books Using the TCU Online Catalog
  
  • Title and author searching for known sources.
    
  • Keyword searching for complex topics. Searching by Keyword searches all indexed fields in the record.
    
  • Subject searching for broad topics. When using phrase searching, the system displays links to broader/narrower search terms, and alternate forms of names and subject headings. Hint: Visit Searching the Online Catalog for more help.
    
  • All item are shelved by LC (Library of Congress) call number. See the library call number location map.
    Hint: In each Library Item Record you can click the item's call number for a map that shows the exact physical location of that item!
    
    
• Can't find that book or article at TCU? Try using Interlibrary Loan. 
  Please note: Use of this service is normally limited to TCU faculty, staff, and graduate students. If you are an undergraduate and need to obtain a document through Interlibrary Loan, please come to the library Reference Desk, or call 257-7117.

Some of the criteria you can use to judge a source (book, magazine article, web site, etc.) are:

• Authorship: Is the author biased or un-biased? Depending on your topic, you may want to include sources where the author has an obvious bias, but you should be aware of what their bias is. On some controversial topics, there may not be any author who everyone would acknowlege as being un-biased. In that case, you may want to be sure and include authors on different sides of the issue.
• Authority: Similar to Authorship, but here the emphasis is on whether the source is one that people knowlegable about your topic would regard as accurate and complete. For example, an up-to-date medical book published by a well-known medical publisher is more likely to be considered authoritative than a web site that someone with no medical degree is running out of their bedroom.
• Scholarly vs. Non-Scholarly: See the Evaluating Journals section on the "Finding Journals" page for a detailed discussion of how to tell the difference between popular magazines versus scholarly journals. (Note: "scholarly" doesn't necessarily mean good, and "popular" doesn't necessarily mean bad -- the difference has to do with whether the author(s) are writing for specialists, or a wider audience. The New England Journal of Medicine is an example of a scholarly journal, while The New Yorker is an example of a popular magazine.)
• Relevance and Quality of information: A particular source might have a lot of authoritative, un-biased information that is not really relevant to your topic. You have to judge whether information from a particular source is really what you need.
• Currency/Timeliness: With some topics, it may be important to look at when the information was published, and when it was last updated. For example, a medical book published in the 1930's might contain a lot of information that is no longer considered true, even though the book was authoritative at the time it was published.

Photocopying is available through the use of your TCU ID at the copy machines located throughout the Mary Couts Burnett Library. All library photocopiers, except those designated for faculty only, accept the TCU student ID as payment. Transaction date, time, location, number of copies and cost per copy ($.07) are sent directly to Financial Services and appear on your monthly billing statement. (This service is not yet available to faculty and staff.) Two of the seven copiers available accept currency/coin and return change.

The William L. Adams Writing Center offers help with writing. Also, see the Writing section of this web site. If you need access to a computer/printer, or special software, see the Computer Lab section of this site.