The English 112 assignment from May 24th is back. See Tara’s blog entry for that date under “Assignments” for ideas. The last topic – where they are writing about ‘vocal authority’, I found the term ‘sociolinguistics’ to also be a useful search term.

Students in Family Studies 323 and 324 have a literature review due on November 9. I have set up a drop in session for this Wednesday October 31 from 12.00-2.00 in Koerner 217, so feel free to encourage students to drop by.
There is also a course page, available here:
http://toby.library.ubc.ca/ereserve/er-coursepage.cfm?id=2131
Thanks,
Lindsay
UPDATE:
About 6 students came to the drop in session on October 31 and most of them were asking how to write a literature review. I showed them the links on the FAQs for Graduate Student Researchers page but, for both classes, they have quite specific instructions from the their instructor about how to format their review, so I have referred them back to the professor for those types of questions.

The Biology 140 assignment has started! Students are coming to the desk looking for AW5… theses and dissertations on creatures like Tigriopus Californicus. Although they might want to look at the reference lists in the dissertations as a resource, the best place for them to be is in Woodward Library where they have all the resources for this assignment of over 1000 students. Sally also has a course page for the assignment which includes an online tutorial.

From Oct. 10 through early Nov. 120 students in Geography 210 will be completing part of a research assignment on lost streams of the Lower Mainland in the Map & Atlas area. I have placed the map and atlas materials they require on top of the map cabinets with appropriate signage. You may get reference questions, since not everything they require is here in Koerner. Feel free to help them or direct them to me as required. Please do not authorize special loans for the required materials; they must do the assignment here. Photocopying is OK.
– Tim

Women’s Studies 100 students may come to the desk asking for help with researching a women’s group or community organization. They have a paper due on October 11 for which they have to select a women’s group of community organization which is working for equality and social justice for women, and critically assess the group’s activities and priorities.
They should already have chosen a group as they are expected to visit them, but just in case they are looking for ideas, this global directory of women’s organizations, includes listings from BC:
http://www.distel.ca/womlist/womlist.html
The Red Book Online also includes listings. Try a search for “women” in the subject field:
http://www2.vpl.vancouver.bc.ca/DBs/Redbook/htmlPgs/search/rbSearch.html
Newspaper articles will likely be the best source of information, particularly Canadian Newsstand. There may also be information in other Canadian sources, such as CBCA Complete.
Lindsay

Heads up: Students have been coming to the desk looking for an article in their course reading list. The citation says it is in the journal “Population Development and Review”; this journal does not exist. Try “Population AND Development Review” and you’ll have more luck.
The citation is:
Rosenfeld, Michael J. (2006). Young Adulthood as a Factor in Social Change in the United States. Population and Development Review, (32)1: 27–51.

I am teaching a class of 160 first-year HKin students today. Their assignment requires them to find reliable sources to support their debate topics (eg: Be it resolved that winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Or Be it resolved that fighting in hockey should be banned.) There is a course website I set up on the HKin subject page a few years back that you can refer them to, as well as the major indexes on the HKIN subject page. I showed them OneSearch – leading to GoogleScholar and the books in the collection – in the class. You can also remind them of the three drop-in sessions I have scheduled (search HKin 161 in the Instruction Centre for dates) if they need more help. Thanks, Ellen

The ENGL 112 class taught by Sarah Parry will be working on a research essay assignment with a Works Cited. Students are being asked to provide 5 peer-reviewed scholarly sources that are relevant to a topic based on pre-assigned readings. Materials from the bibliographies of assigned readings are not accepted. A copy of the assignment can be found in the Course Assignments binder at the Reference Desk.
Topic A: Ethnic Studies
Possible search terms: Try the following keyword search:
Academic Search Premier or Sociological Abstracts: (immigrant women or women immigrants) and (labour market or employment) plus whatever occupation or country the students have chosen to research. “Ethnic economy” can be used with some success.
NB: Limit to Peer-Reviewed Sources
Contemporary Women’s Issues: keyword (immigrant) and select Workplace from the Subject Area drop down menu. *You can also select Geographic region if the student has selected a national context.
Topic B: Adolescent Studies
In Academic Search Premier, AnthroSource, Sociological Abstracts: A useful search is friendship and (school or education) and sociability or a search with “friendship” “adolescence” and “education” or “high school”. The instructor has suggested that students may want to research “esl” and “friendship” and read professional ESL journals. UBC holds a few ESL journals.

Topic C: Labour Studies

Academic Search Premier, Web of Science
Suggested searches: “trade unions and (globalization or coalitions)” or “union and minorities” or “unions and environmentalism” depending on the students’ topic of choice.
NB: The instructor has indicated that some students may choose to look at teachers/nurses and unions, although this is a much harder topic. She has suggested that students may need to contact her for recommended sources.
Topic D: Gender Studies
Academic Search Premier, Sociological Abstracts, Contemporary Women’s Issues:
Useful keywords are “gender, language, discourse studies” and whatever profession students are investigating such as “law, medicine, broadcasting (specify tv, radio, etc.) The term ‘sociolinguistics’ is also be a useful search term.

Heads up – a number of Poli Sci students have been coming by the desk looking for books and articles on the topic of declining youth voter turnout in Canada.
The subject heading Voting – Canada reveals 56 titles, including the popular “Are young Canadians becoming political dropouts? : a comparative perspective” by Henry Milner. The Koerner copy is signed out, but fortunately this policy document is also freely available online..
The Elections Canada website Youth section has a link to publications and reports on youth voter turnout.
For scholarly articles, both Academic Search Premier and International Political Science Abstracts turned up some good results.
Update:
Patrick has turned up a great survey from StatsCan:

Students from Ling 319 are looking for books and articles on a language family for an annotated bibliography. They need 8 sources. The resources have to be on the language family, not on a specific language.
A subject heading search will do the trick; just follow this format: