Senior Research Project (AMETH 499)
Getting Started
This guide is intended for students enrolled in AMETH 499 - Senior Research Project. Hopefully, you are familiar with the library website, and some of our databases. If you need some refreshing, here are some research tutorials.
Literature Review
A Literature Review is an essential component of a serious research project. But what is a literature review?
A literature review is different from a book review, and it is also different from an academic paper. The following articles explain what a literature review is and how to write one:
1. Literature Reviews - UNC Chapel Hill
2. How to Write a Literature Review - University of California, Santa Cruz
Another good way to learn about literature reviews is to read actual ones! After you have found some scholarly journal articles for your project, study their literature review sections.
How to Write a Research Paper
Writing a Research Paper by Sarah Hamid (Purdue University)
Planning and Writing a Reseach Paper - from the Writing Center at the University of Wiscoinsin at Madison
How to Write a Thesis Statement (Indiana University)
Examples: The bad thesis statement and the better thesis statement (University of Pennsylvania)
Suggested Resources
Primary Sources
What is a primary source? - Anything that has been created by a person who witnessed or experienced an event as a contemporary would be a primary source. Examples of primary sources would include letters, diaries, autobiographies, and contemporary documents such as newspaper articles, government documents, and oral histories. --Tim Watts
Using Primary Sources on the Web (American Library Association) - Students and researchers now have greater access to primary source materials for historical research than ever before. The traditional use of sources available in print and microfilm continues to be the foundation for research, but in some cases documents, letters, maps, photographs of ancient artifacts and other primary material are available online in different formats from free websites or subscription services on the internet. Users of primary sources have always needed to examine their sources critically, but now with the proliferation of electronic resources from a wide variety of web site producers, evaluation is more important than ever before. Users of web resources must now consider the authenticity of documents, what person or organization is the internet provider, and whether the electronic version serves their needs. This brief guide is designed to provide students and researchers with information to help them evaluate the internet sources and the quality of primary materials that can be found online.
Leo Lo
K-State Libraries
Social Sciences/Humanities Department
Hale Library, 203
(785) 532-2158
leolo@ksu.edu
http://www.lib.k-state.edu