Monday, July 21, 2008

SWC Day 6--Research

Yes, I know I skipped days 4 and 5, but in summary my piece was workshopped (well-received, might I add, and I got some very helpful feedback too) and I bagged some lectures to go to the beach. Not much has changed about me since high school in that regard. 

Today was another workshop with Meg Wolitzer to go over other people's work, but I do find that I learn something about my own writing even when discussing specifics of someone else's.

We also had a great lecture about research (one that I very nearly skipped!) from Catherine Creedon*, a research librarian at the Sag Harbor Library. Thank goodness I was a serious student today, because this lecture will directly impact my upcoming WIP. She spoke about the limitations of Google and provided us with a nifty little handout of other sources for research. I'll give you the Cliff Notes:

Regular Search Engine Stuff besides Google:
Clusty--this organizes the returns in clusters to refine your search
Dogpile--searches several search engines at once
SPUTTR--another good source

Reference Sites:
Bartleby--this one was very cool. It has just about every reference book you can think of online, plus lots of fiction.
Gutenberg Collection--another very cool site with thousands of whole books available to download. I'll use this a ton.
Jstor--search academic articles from scholarly journals

Specialized Sites:
PodScope--search videos and podcasts
CyberCemetery--archive dead government web pages
Wayback Machine--archive dead non-governmental web pages

And, of course there is Wiki, but you all know that it should only be used as a starting point, right? 

Go forth and research!

*Let's make a librarian happy and cite sources here. Thanks Catherine Creedon. 

5 comments:

Ed Wyrd said...

Cool. That government photo one is neat. There's a canceled check in there for the purchase of Alaska.

I'm such a geek.

WendyCinNYC said...

That IS cool. There is lots of good stuff for history buffs and literature fans. I think it's cool that I could read A Tale of Two Cities online if I felt like it.

Another tip the librarian gave was to create a PDF file if you find something online that you need to use for research. Aside from the archive sites, things get updated all the time and next time they could be **blip**--gone.

Anonymous said...

This is a great list. Thanks.

Janna Leadbetter said...

Thanks! This is fantatic!

But quit playin' hookie.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

It sounds like you're having a great time & learnin' lots!