Before we get into finding new books and resources to purchase, ILL or borrow, lets talk about the three different kinds of research out there that you need to know about so you can judge your sources. The three kinds are, The Good, the OK and the Awful!
Good research
Good research tells the reader “Here are my conclusions based on these specific resources. Here’s exactly where I found them and these are the citations with page numbers, URL’s that I used, images that I refer to, source material that isn’t published but I looked at in the museum, etc.”
This is the best kind of research material to look for because you can see exactly where the research got their information from and be able to look at that source yourself. The point of publishing research is two fold. First its to wow people with “Look what I found! Its so cool I just had to share it!” and the second is “Here’s the sources I used so you can a) come to your own conclusions about the same materials b) use them as a jumping off point to research a related topic”. Sample:
The history of the grand widget is one of interests to many scientific disciplines and archeologists1. It was produced in many colors, red was the most popular color2, and was a major export product for the Swampmuck region between the years 1550 and 1600.3
Figure 1: The grand widget, Museum of historical objects, Willow, Greater Eagle. Inventory no. 512 http://www.museumofhistoricalobjects/521.jpg 1See Tracy,Augustus Cross discipline historical studies of Widgets Rotor press, 2004 2Olive, Oil “Inventories of the Kremmer family”, Material Research Review 1999(2), 3-16 3 Thoughts, Penny F. Commerce in the Northern region of Greater Eagle Muckity Muck press, 1993
OK Research
OK Research tells the reader “These are the sources that I used for this paper, I didn’t bother keeping track of the page numbers and where I got what but here’s a list for each chapter of the resources I used.” At least with this approach, you *hopefully* have a somewhat complete list of what sources they did use. So if you are looking for a work that will give you more information on the daily use of the great widget, you can look in the bibliography for that chapter and see if there are any resources that mention “great widget” in their titles or look like they might be likely candidates for containing such information. Sample:
The history of the grand widget is one of interests to many scientific disciplines and archeologists. It was produced in many colors, red was the most popular color, and was a major export product for the Swampmuck region between the years 1550 and 1600.
Figure 1: The grand widget, Museum of historical objects, Bibliography Olive, Oil “Inventories of the Kremmer family”, Material Research Review 1999(2), 3-16 Thoughts, Penny F. Commerce in the Northern region of Greater Eagle Muckity Muck press, 1993 Tracy,Augustus Cross discipline historical studies of Widgets Rotor press, 2004
Awful (aka BAD) research “
Take my word for it, I did the research so you don’t have to” or “Here’s an image that I re-drew, but I’m not going to tell you where I got it from or who drew the original.” Sample:
The history of the grand widget is one of interests to many scientific disciplines and archeologists. It was produced in many colors, red was the most popular color, and was a major export product for the Swampmuck region between the years 1550 and 1600.
Figure 1: The grand widget When you find a book or article like this, its essentially usless to use as a research tool, because how do you know if: a) The writer didn’t just make it all up? b) Cited all their sources that they really used? c) Didn’t misinterpret a source?
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