HONORS COLLEGE ASSIGNMENT
DUE WEDNESDAY 8TH SEPTEMBER
ASSIGNMENT 1 - REQUIRED
• An in-depth on-line lit search (Med-Line, Psychlit, Sociology Abstracts etc) in the area or on the topic of your thesis.
-- Please show all the steps along the way (e.g., alternative search words, use of browse or thesaurus terms, expansions/explode, limits) etc and the results of each step ( e.g., how many articles were identified).
-- Be sure to try many different approaches to your topic. Do NOT stop after one or two efforts. It would not be unusual to try five or more approaches. Be persistent and think creatively!
-- Do not make your search too narrow. You need to understand the general field before you can make sense of your specific question. For example, if your research is on adolescence, you should still investigate the phenommenon (e.g. domestic violence) in adults, or if relevant, in children (violence against peers).
• When you get the search to manageable proportions (between 30 and 200 citations), print out all the abstracts of the relevant articles. Read the abstracts and identify the 10 most important articles for you to read. Append the abstracts of these 10 articles to your "search history".
ASSIGNMENT 2 -- RECOMMENDED
• Outline your search process for a Web search for sites relevant to your topic. Include "abortive " efforts, as well as successful ones.
• If relevant, locate government or international documents that give statistics for the phenomenon of interest.
• Go into the relevant sites, and explore what is there. download relevant information.