Environmental Science

Oliver Wendell Holmes Library
Catalog	Resource Guides	Databases	What's New

The Sun, photographed in integrated light at the peak of the sunspot cycle in 1957. (California Institute of Technology/Palomar Observatory)

Campus Sustainability

Do I have an impact?

Teachers: Mr. Rogers and Ms. Bogdanovitch
Instructional Librarian: Mr. Blake
SCIE-300

Get Organized!

Gather Information

Use the Information

Take Time to Reflect

Municipal solid waste. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) R. L. Swanson, et al., "Recycling technology", in AccessScience@McGraw-Hill, http://www.accessscience.com, DOI 10.1036/1097-8542.757456, last modified: August 1, 2006.

Your assignment is to prepare a research paper and a presentation dealing with a campus sustainability issue. Please contact Mr. Blake, in the library if you have any questions about the research process.

The following steps will assist you in the research process.

Step 1: Get Organized

Before you begin your research follow these crucial steps:

1. Understand the assignment.	You will be required to produce: A short scientific research paper
2. Plan your time wisely	Try the Assignment Calculator (from the University of Minnesota’s QuickStudy: Library Research Guide).
3. Choose a broad topic or area of interest.	Need help choosing a topic?
4. Get an overview of the topic.	Where to find good overviews.
5. Narrow the topic.	Get focused!
6. Write a thesis statement or statement of purpose.	Statement of Purpose/Essential Question /Thesis Statement Tips for developing a thesis statement. (from Joyce Valenza's Online Lessons and Activities)

Step 2: Gather Information

Finding Reference books:

Begin your research with refence books to help you gain an overview of your topic, develop a list of search terms, and begin to build a bibliography. Click here to see a list of reference books in the Garver Room.

Finding circulating books:

OWL the library's online catalog is your source for books, journals, microfiche, and leisure reading. You can also expand your search to include the holdings of other libraries in the NOBLE system. You may request books from these other libraries and have them delivered here in a few days time.

Tip: Ask a Librarian, stop by a Help Desk early and often during the research process for assistance.

Using the NOBLE catalog links below, see what materials the OWHL has readily available!

Organic Pigments Industrial toxicology Hydrogen Fuel Cells Lead Municipal waste

Biomass energy Solar Cells Global Warming Hazardous waste Environmental engineering

Wind energy Recycling Solar energy fertilizers Energy conservation

Finding electronic databases:

Access Science provides access to McGraw-Hill's Encyclopedia of Science and technology. It includes many images and gives basic overviews as well as indepth bibliographies for each entry.

Columbia Earthscape publishes a wide range of scholarship in the Earth and Environmental Sciences featuring exercises and labs, syllabi, and basic textbook readings.

Encyclopedia Britannica contains the full-text of scholarly articles on many academic subjects. It is a vital tool for searching for "primary source" information.

HighWire contains bibliographic citations and full text coverage to many of the major scientific journals

JSTOR contains the full-text of scholarly articles on many academic subjects. It is a vital tool for searching for "primary source" information.

New York Times Current contains the full-text of all New York Times articles from 1999 to present. Many articles have appeared in the "Science Times" section that comes out on Tuesdays.

Opposing Viewpoints contains topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.

Scientific American Archive Online contains the full-text of one of the most prominent general science magazines. Many stories about species behavior, neurobiology, sociobiology, and ethology.

Finding Internet Web Sites:

**Remember to evaluate web sites for authority and content.

Librarian's Index to the Internet website is the first web site to go to if you have a topic that is related to the environmental sciences. Search LII.org and get all of the websites that librarians from around the world have recommended to their users.

Step 3: Use the Information

Synthesize the information, make an outline, take notes, organize the information, write the paper and document sources.	Capture the information you will need for your bibliography the first time you use each source.
Use these handy forms for collecting all the data elements you will need.	To help in the construction of your bibliography please use the MLA format. The Citation Machine website might be useful.
Make sure to avoid Plagiarism!	Use this useful guide to quoting and paraphrasing sources.

Try this excellent tool to create and produce your bibliography in CBE style. Click here to go to REFWORKS. When producing your "Literature Cited" bibliography be sure to use the "Council of Biology Editors - CBE 6th, Name-Year Sequence" Output Style. Note: REFWORKS can only be used from on-campus computers.

The first time you access this product you will have to create a personal account. Then track all of your research needs with this one source!

If you prefer the old fashioned print way, click here or here to see a CBE style guide that will help. We are using the Name-Year style.

Never used PowerPoint? Click here for a brief tutorial from Florida Gulf Coast University.

Do you need an image for your PowerPoint? Make sure to document the image and don't use ones that have an active copyright statement. Many images can be had from Google Image Searcher, CDC Public Health Image Library, University of Wisconsin MicroText, Cells Alive, or the digital librarian.

Step 4: Take time to Reflect

The paper is ready to be handed in. The bibliography is complete. Ask yourself: did you accomplish what you wanted to do? What else could I have done to guarantee a six? If you take the time to evaluate what you did you will become a better researcher.