ENG222 Information Literacy 2012

Instructors: Associate Prof. Mark Jackson, Reference & Information Literacy Librarian, Assistant Prof. John Hinchcliffe


  • Brief introduction to using books
  • Brief introduction to Google Scholar for finding scholarly information GOOGLE SCHOLAR [http://scholar.google.com/]
  • In-depth Introduction to the Bloomfield College Library Databases [http://ezproxy.bloomfield.edu/public/databases.htm]

Books are an extremely important part of a well-rounded and thorough research process. Books provide in-depth information not available on the Web. If you take the typical Wikipedia article, it will be a few pages long. Wikipedia may provide enough information to give you some background understanding of the topic, but not in sufficient depth and quality to make it suitable for an academic college research paper.  CATALOG FOR BOOKS AND OTHER MEDIA [http://sirius2.bloomfield.edu/]

Google Scholar is a fantastic research tool. What is a scholar? What is scholarly? Google Scholar can provide access to what your professor is looking for in terms of the quality of your research paper.

Evaluating what you find: Is it appropriate?

Cornell University Library’s Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages [http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/webcrit.html] is an excellent site with plenty of great information.

Databases: ProQuest Research Library; Academic Search Premier; Contemporary Literary Criticism; Literature Resource Center; and, JSTOR

Why use these databases? They provide authoritative articles that are usually NOT available on the Web. These articles are from journals. A journal is a type of periodical that contains scholarly articles written by specialists aimed at other specialists in a particular field. An article in a scholarly journal is usually documented with footnotes and/or a bibliography. For the most part, scholarly journals are published monthly or quarterly and contain little advertising or few, if any, color illustrations. Bloomfield College Library Databases [http://ezproxy.bloomfield.edu/public/databases.htm]

What is an academic or scholarly journal and why should we care? Writing an excellent-quality A paper entails many things. Time and effort need to be put into the paper. The paper needs to be grammatically proper and all words should be spelled correctly. The paper should also have as its foundation a solid base of research using scholarly or academic publications. Previously we identified certain attributes of a scholar. Our databases provide access to this type of quality, academic writing. The journal AMERICAN LITERATURE is an example of a scholarly publication. 


ProQuest: Using the topic finder feature, rather than just typing words into the basic search box, we can focus our results. For example, using Hughes, Langston returns results for a number of topics or subjects. One topic is Hughes, Langston (person) AND Literary criticism. We can then view the documents. We need to do two things to get the results we want. Click on show only full text articles, and then click on the tab for scholarly journals. We have now narrowed our results.

We can also use the advanced search feature. Try to utilize all of the built in features of the database before using the advanced search. Look for recommended subjects or recommended publications. You can not think of every word or search term that will help you find the information you are looking for.

With most databases, as you find articles that you feel are appropriate and relevant to your research project, you may mark the article and insert it into a folder. When you are finished, click your folder tab at the top of the page. Follow the instructions for compiling an MLA style bibliography. For a preliminary bibliography and references, include the citation and abstract. Additionally, you can generate a citation using the appropriate link.