Dear Refugee Scholars,
For our Wednesday, September 16th class session (Week 3), we will meet in Canaday Library, Room 315 with research librarian Jennifer Stoval for an introduction to library research. The session will equip us with the fundamental and advanced research methods you will need to pursue your projects.
Please come prepared in two ways. First, read the brief chapter from Thomas Mann’s Oxford guide to Library Research (2015) posted to Moodle, which introduces the art of strategically using encyclopedias to develop a topic of interest. Second, arrive with 3-5 topics or questions you would like to explore further; rough and provisional is entirely fine.
After reading Mann, you will immediately put him to work by following his advice, using encyclopedias and references works I have listed on our Moodle page under “Research Resources.” In addition to the works we began exploring together in class today, I have posted a “Bibliography of Reference Works,” a running Google Doc gathering specialized reference works of many kinds that could serve you well in this early phase of research.
Your homework for next week’s class is to dedicate a significant chunk of time to continuing to explore topics of interest. I’d suggest consulting at least three different reference books, and tracking down articles of interest across a few topics. Please write up a narrative of your research process, describing the topics you gravitated toward, articles you settled on. While I expect you to skim over a good number of articles before finding ones that hold you. I expect you to read at least 30-40 pages closely. Please include a list of the articles you skimmed and those you read carefully in the document you’ll turn in to me by Wednesday (email or Google Docs link is fine). Your narrative does not have to be particularly tidy or finely edited or anything. I just want to follow your research process to see what you did.
Come to our Week 3 with at least 3-5 topics you would like to research more intensely and be prepared to continue discussing your discoveries with your classmates.
In addition to the Mann, the texts you read in the encyclopedia, you are required to read the Philipp Ther text as well, since it will prepare us for the week that comes after.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
See you next week!
Best,
Ben Van Zee