Research Orientation

This orientation, if completed correctly, can take over an hour to complete. In it you will find the tools necessary to complete much of your research for this course. Also, toward the bottom are two media presentations on using the MCC online resources (15 minutes), and how to write a better research paper (30 minutes). Do not shortchange yourself and just skim over this information. Ass. 2 (bulletin board 2) requires that you write and post an essay about this orientation.

The Mesa Community College Library has many modern online research tools to help you be successful with your research for this course, and other courses that you will take in the future.

Your first task should be to orient yourself to the library. You may do this by visiting the library at your convenience, walking through the areas with online indexes, CD-ROM sources, Periodical areas, and the stacks.

The Paul Elsner Library/High Tech Center at MCC is new, with many conveniences and educational tools for students. The winter hours for this new library are as follows:

M-Thursday: 6:00 a. m.-Midnight
Friday: 6:00 a. m.-5:00 p. m.
Saturday: 8:00 a. m.-5:00 p. m.
Sunday: Noon-10:00 p. m.
(summer schools students need to check with the library for hours)

The bottom floor is filled with Windows and Mac computers, all connected to the Internet, capable of accessing your mail account and course, and has all the tools necessary for you to complete this course, including Netscape Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office (which includes MS Word for writing your papers), laser printers, and of course, all the connections to the library's vast online resources.

The second floor has more computers, but these are for research only. They do not have the word processors that the bottom floor contains. The book stacks are on the second and third floor. This new library should be visited if you are a local student.

You should also become familiar with the library's online catalogs. This can be accessed from the library terminals and from the toolbar from the top of each of your Assignment pages in this course.

The MCC's library's own Internet home page offers you a variety of Internet sources for your use in the lab and in the library.

The Internet link link will give you many valuable search engines from the Internet.

Be sure to try the eResources link, where the The Britannica Online Encyclopedia link is a full text encyclopedia that comes up in Netscape's or IE's browser. This link contains many online sources, including the Expanded Academic Info Trac ASAP, a powerful online index, with over 60% of the articles listed available in full text right from this source. Other articles will come with abstracts or full listings as to where you can find the article. The full text articles can be printed right from the browser page in the lab or library. Home based students can use Info Trac, however, using their MCC e-mail username and password to gain entry.

To gain access to the eResources in the library, you must use the Off Campus login. From the main Library home page, select Online Students.
At the top of this next screen is a menu bar -- choose eResources.
The next screen will give you an list of the online resources. The image example to the right gives only a few of these resources. When you choose one of the resources that need verification that you are an MCC student, an Off-Campus eResource Access screen will appear:
Once you have logged in, the eResources will become available.

Perhaps an easier way to get to the library's online resources is through your menu on MyMCC. The menu on the left has a link that takes you directly to the Library's online resources, and since you have already logged in to MyMCC, you will not need to sign in again.

MCCD has a Library Information System (LIS). This system should make student research easier, incorporating all the MCCD libraries, and online sources. Try it at this address:

http://library.maricopa.edu/

GaleNet is a Contemporary Authors link. This can be handy when needing background information on writers of literature, including Tony Hillerman. Currently this link can only be used in the lab or library.

MCC's Library also has a page for its other Internet sources. This page can be used both in the lab, the library, or from home.

Try the Library Home Page

Try the Library Internet Subject Guides

Seven Steps to Effective Research

You will also find CD-ROM research tools in the MCC library. Many of these can be accessed from the lab, through icons in the English classes group in Windows. All can be accessed in the library. Home students can access most of these valuable research tools through the Remote Online Databases link (see above).

Lastly, you will find a link in the MCC library that will help you understand college research and what can be expected of you when writing college research papers. Be sure to read and listen to this:

This short 15 minutes media clip demonstrates how to use CQ Researcher a key information resource for locating in depth information on current issues, especially those that give rise to debate about the pros and cons of the various aspects of the topics. The clip references several Tips for using electronic resources efficiently including learning how to 'read the screen'.

The 30 minute presentation reviews key elements of researching, with a little humor and lots of links to library resources.

The Mesa Public Library has an Internet Homepage that will take you though its resources and the resources of several other libraries. It also has a research page with handy, categorized subjects. Orient yourself to this link:

Netscape and Microsoft's Internet Explorer offer you some very sophisticated search engines to help you find information on the Internet. In Netscape or IE, these search programs can be activated by choosing Search from the menu bar. One search engine may be featured at the top of the Search page that comes up, but many other search engines will be listed at the bottom of the page. You should try to use several to see how they work, and use these search tools in finding information for your paper. The following search tools are considered excellent:

Try them out. Each has good online help. Be sure that you comment in your bulletin board entry in Assignment 3 which ones you like best and seem most helpful.

Dogpile andOne2Seek are powerful meta search engine that you might like to try. These meta search engines scan many Internet search engines at once and compile a list of sources from all.

Last but not least on this tour, Yahoo has created a help page for writers that includes a dictionary, Almanac, Encyclopedia, ect. Try this link. In the future, you will be able to access this page from the English Department's Writing Resource page. Yahoo's Reference page.

When you finish this tour, you should really have something to write about in your bulletin board essay in Assignment 3!

Yahoo	Bing	Alta Vista	Excite
Google	Webcrawler	Ask