Up to the Last Minute of Research

We've almost made it to Spring Break (even though it's been shortened due to snow.) And the media center is chock full of busy students researching up to the last minute today! To elaborate on the end of last week's post regarding finding sources (since many classes have been squeezing in the still fairly cold yet 137 degree media center):

Let's say you are working on a research project on the American Civil War. Perhaps you decided (or were assigned) a topic comparing the South's slavery laws with South Africa's apartheid laws of the 1980s-90s.

Your first stop in the research zone will probably be the Gale database or the Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) database. Despite the advanced search function, you cannot find an article about American slavery and South African apartheid. After several minutes of frustration, you have two choices: give up or figure out a new way of searching. Let's stick with number two.

Just because you cannot find an article (or 5 or 7 articles, depending on the required number of sources) does not mean you have a bad topic. It is very rare in life to find sources that give you exactly what you are looking for without more effort on your part. You just need to think at a higher level. In elementary school, you read the information and regurgitated it for your project. In middle school, you read the information, spit it back out and possibly added an opinion. From now on, you will take the facts and use them to support your theory while analyzing and synthesizing the information!

Find articles about slavery in the South. One might be on the history of the slave trade, another on the defense of slavery as given by the Antebellum South. Perhaps you can find an article that shows the effect of slavery on the family. Now search for South Africa and apartheid. You want to find articles explaining how the government established and defended this system. Most likely you will find articles showing the long-term effect on the cultures of the different ethnic groups and on the family structure.

Take notes on the articles.

Now start comparing the two systems. Are there commonalities in the effects? Did they politicians use similar or different defensive arguments? Were the laws regulating these systems similar or different?

And THAT is what you can write in your paper. (Just remember to properly cite those sources!)