For many college writing assignments, you’ll need to find information from various sources and accurately cite those sources. This activity gives you practice developing these skills using the many resources of your campus library, and challenges you to compare and contrast these library resources with sources found online.
First, identify a topic you find interesting or even controversial. For help, type “controversial essay topics” into your web browser, or select a topic that you’ll be writing about for an actual class assignment this term.
Next, go to the website for your college or university library. Locate the library’s general search engine (typically a box you can type in), which often appears on the library’s home page. (If you need help locating the search engine, reach out to the library staff — helping you find resources is their job!)
Use the library search engine to find five different sources for your topic. Sources may include a full book, book chapter, magazine or newspaper article, scholarly journal article, published dissertation, conference proceedings, technical report, film/video, or other web documents or reports. To find these sources, type a series of search terms into the search engine. For example, let’s say you choose to investigate whether college student athletes should receive compensation (e.g., salary, third-party endorsements, personal appearances, etc.). In this case, you’d enter the key words “college student athlete” and “compensation” into the search engine.
In the text box below, provide citations for five of the sources you find during your search. Depending on your instructor’s preference, use either MLA (Modern Language Association) or APA (American Psychological Association) style to cite each source. For example, let’s say you locate the journal article "Should College Athletes Be Allowed to Be Paid? A Public Opinion Analysis" by Chris Knoester and David Ridpath and the book The Debate about Paying College Athletes (Pros and Cons) by Gail Terp. Your instructor requires APA style for citations, so you cite these sources as follows:
Knoester, C., & Ridpath, B. (2020). Should college athletes be allowed to be paid? A public opinion analysis. Sociology of Sport Journal, 1-13.
Terp, G. (2018). The debate about paying college athletes (Pros and cons). Focus Readers.
Once you’ve finished citing your library sources, conduct a general internet search on the same topic. Type the same key words into your web browser (such as “college student athletes” and “compensation”) and select two websites that come up. As with your library sources, type citations for these two web sources in the text box below using your instructor’s preferred citation style.
Now, reflect on the information you’ve collected from both searches by responding to the following three questions.