Help: A Guide for Students

Your unique Access Code for Research Navigator may be located in a Research Navigator user’s guide that was included with the purchase of your new Pearson textbook, printed on an access code card found in this user’s guide or your textbook, or on the inside cover of your textbook. Be sure to check your textbook package! In most cases, this Access Code is a series of characters; typically, six words separated by hyphens. It is not case sensitive. To register for Research Navigator with this Access Code, click here. Once you have successfully completed the registration process, you will have access to all of the resources in Research Navigator for six or twelve months, depending on your text.

Research Navigator is designed to help you with the research process, from identifying a topic to editing the final draft. It serves as an ideal starting point for your research and offers guidance on how to make your trips to the campus library more productive.

Note: Minimum browser requirements

• Netscape 7.x
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5
• Macintosh: Safari 1.2x or Netscape 7.x

What Is Research Navigator™?

Complete with extensive help on the research process and four exclusive databases of credible and reliable source material including the EBSCO Academic Journal and Abstract Database, New York Times Search by Subject Archive, and “Best of the Web” Link Library, and Financial Times article archive and company financials, Research Navigator™ helps you quickly and efficiently make the most of your research time.

Research Navigator™ includes four databases of credible and reliable source material to get your research process started:

1. The EBSCO Academic Journal and Abstract Database, organized by subject, contains many of the leading academic journals for each discipline covered. Instructors and students can search the online journals by keyword, topic, or multiple topics. Articles include abstract and citation information and can be cut, pasted, emailed, or saved for later use.
2. The New York Times Search by Subject™ Archive is organized by academic subject and searchable by keyword, or multiple keywords. Instructors and students can view full-text articles from the world’s leading journalists from The New York Times. The New York Times Search by Subject™ Archive is available exclusively to instructors and students through Research Navigator™.
3. Link Library, organized by subject, offers editorially selected “best of the web” sites. Link Libraries are continually scanned and kept up to date providing the most relevant and accurate links for research assignments.
4. The Financial Times Article Archive and Company Financials provides a searchable one-year archive and five-year financials for the 500 largest U.S. companies (by gross revenue).

In addition, Research Navigator™ includes extensive online content detailing the steps in the research process including:

• Understanding the Research Process
• Finding Sources for your Assignment
• Using your Library for Research, with library guides to 31 core disciplines. Each library guide includes an overview of major databases and online journals, key associations and newsgroups, and suggestions for further research.
• Writing Your Research Assignment
• Finishing with Endnotes and a Bibliography

Research Navigator™ is simple to use and easy to navigate. The goal of Research Navigator™ is to help you complete research assignments or research papers quickly and efficiently. The site is organized around the following sections (identified by Tabs):

• Home
• The Research Process
• Finding Sources
• Using Your Library
• Start Writing
• Endnotes & Bibliography

However, in order to begin using Research Navigator™, you must first register using the personal access code found in your new Pearson textbook package.

To Register

1. Click “Register” under new users on the left side of the home page screen.
2. Enter the access code exactly as it appears on the inside front cover of your book or on your access card. (Note: Access codes can only be used once to complete one registration. If you purchased a used guide or text, the access code may not work.)
3. Follow the instructions on screen to complete your registration—-you may click the Help button at any time if you are unsure how to respond.
4. Once you have successfully completed registration, write down the Login Name and Password you just created and keep it in a safe place. You will need to enter it each time you want to revisit Research Navigator™.
5. Once you register, you have access to all the resources in Research Navigator™ for six or twelve months, depending on your text.

Research Navigator™ Tabs

From Research Navigator™ ‘s Homepage, you have easy access to all of the site’s main features including a quick route to the four exclusive databases of source content that will be discussed in greater detail on the following pages. If you are new to the research process, you may want to start by browsing The Research Process tab. Here you will find extensive help on all aspects of the research process including:

• Selection of a Research Topic
• Establishing a Research Schedule
• Creating Effective Notes
• Research Paper Paradigms
• Understanding and Finding “Source” Material
• Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism

The first step in completing a research assignment or research paper is to select a topic. (In some cases, your instructor may assign you a topic.) According to James D. Lester in Writing Research Papers (you can find more tips from Lester in The Research Process section of Research Navigator™), choosing a topic for the research paper can be easy (any topic will serve) yet very complicated (an informed choice is critical). He suggests selecting a person, a person’s work, or a specific issue to study—President George Bush, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, or learned dexterity with Nintendo games. Select a subject from these general areas:

• Current events (effects of maternal smoking)
• Education (standardized testing in public schools)
• Social issues (parents who lie to their children)
• Science (genetic engineering and cloning)

Try to select a topic that will meet three demands.

1. It must examine a significant issue.
2. It must address a knowledgeable reader and carry that reader to another level of knowledge.
3. It must have a serious purpose, one that demands analysis of the issues, argues from a position, and explains complex details.

Once you have selected and narrowed your research topic, you are now ready to gather data. Gathering data is a serious task. Some leads will turn out to be dead ends; other leads will provide only trivial information. Some research will be duplicated, and a recursive pattern will develop; that is, you will go back and forth from reading, to searching indexes, the Internet, the library and back again to reading. One idea modifies another, until you begin discovering connections and refining your topic even further.

Finding Sources

Research Navigator™ simplifies your research efforts by giving you a convenient launching pad for gathering data. The site has aggregated four distinct types of source material commonly used in research assignments; Academic Journals (ContentSelect); Newspaper Articles (New York Times), World Wide Web Sites (Link Library), and Business News, Special Reports, and Data (Financial Times).

1) The EBSCO Academic Journal and Abstract Database for Academic, Scholarly, or Peer-Reviewed Journals

The first database you’ll find on Research Navigator™ is the EBSCO Academic Journal and Abstract Databases containing scholarly, peer-reviewed journals (like Journal of Clinical Psychology or Journal of Anthropology). A scholarly journal is an edited collection of articles written by various authors and published several times per year. All the issues published in one calendar year comprise a volume of that journal. For example, the American Sociological Review published volume 65 in the year 2000. This official journal of the American Sociological Association is published six times a year, so issues 1-6 in volume 65 are the individual issues for that year. Each issue contains between four to eight articles written by a variety of authors. Additionally, journal issues may contain letters from the editor, book reviews, and comments from authors. Each issue of a journal does not necessarily revolve around a common theme. In fact, most issues contain articles on many different topics. By now, you should have a sense of what a scholarly journal looks like. They are a little like magazines in that they are published several times per year and contain a variety of articles in each issue. Scholarly journals, however, are NOT magazines.

What sets them apart from popular magazines like Newsweek or Science News is that the content of each issue is peer-reviewed. This means that each journal has, in addition to an editor and editorial staff, a pool of reviewers. Rather than a staff of writers who write something on assignment, journals accept submissions from academic researchers all over the country and the world. The editor, then, relies on these reviewers to evaluate the papers these authors submit to help determine if they should be accepted for publication in the journal or rejected. These kinds of articles provide you with a very specialized kind of knowledge and information about your research topic. Academic journal articles adhere to strict scientific guidelines for methodology and theoretical grounding. The information obtained in these individual articles is more scientific than information you would find in a popular magazine, in a newspaper article, or on a web page.

ContentSelect Search Tips

Searching for articles in ContentSelect is easy! Here are some tips to help you find articles for your research paper.

Search by Article Number

Each article in the EBSCO ContentSelect Academic Journal and Abstract Database is assigned its own unique article number. In some cases, you may know the exact article number for the journal article you’d like to retrieve. Perhaps you noted it during a prior research session on Research Navigator. Such article numbers might also be found on a companion web site for your text, or in the text itself.

To retrieve a specific article, simply type that article number in the “Search by Article Number” field and click the GO button.

Basic Search

The following tips will help you with Basic Searches.

Guided Search

The following tips will help you with a Guided Search.

Expert Search

The following tips will help you with an Expert Search.

2) New York Times Search By Subject Archive for Newspaper Articles

Newspapers, also known as periodicals because they are issued in periodic installments (e.g. daily, weekly, or monthly) provide contemporary information. Information in periodicals — journals, magazines, and newspapers — may be useful, or even critical, when you are ready to focus in on specific aspects of your topic, or to find more up-to-date information.

There are some significant differences between newspaper articles and journal articles, and you should consider the level of scholarship that is most appropriate for your research. Popular or controversial topics may not be well covered in journals, even though coverage in newspapers and “general interest” magazines like Newsweek and Science for that same topic may be extensive.

Research Navigator™ gives you access to a one-year, “search by subject” archive of articles from one of the world’s leading newspapers—The New York Times. To learn more about The New York Times, visit them on the web at http://www.nytimes.com.

Using the search-by-subject archive is easy. Simply search by subject and keyword(s) to find news stories that will support your research assignment. You will see a list of articles that have appeared in the New York Times over the last year, sorted by most recent article first. Articles can be printed or saved for later use in your research assignment. Be sure to review the citation rules for how to cite a newspaper article in endnotes or a bibliography.

3) “Best of the Web” Link Library

The third database of content included on Research Navigator™ is a collection of web links, organized by academic subject and key terms. To use this database, simply select a subject from the dropdown list, and find the key term for the topic you are searching. Click on the key term and see a list of 5-7 editorially-reviewed web sites that offer educationally relevant and credible content. For example, if you were to select the “pollution” term from the Biology—Environmental Science subject category, you would get a list of a dozen web links. The site topics range from different types of pollution — air, noise, water — to the status of environmental legislation. How dependable are the sources? All are well-known and well-regarded government or educational institutions: the University of California at Irvine, the Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA Ames Research Center. Some may quarrel with policies and enforcement efforts of government agencies, but the federal government has a long-established role in collecting and disseminating information. The web sites for “pollution”, for example, cover water pollution in general, how stratospheric ozone is being depleted, the latest city-by-city air pollution data, and the like. The web links in Link Library are monitored and updated each week reducing your incidence of finding “dead” links.

4) The Financial Times Article Archive and Company Financials

There may be instances when your research assignment calls for business-related information and data. Through our exclusive agreement with the Financial Times, a leading daily newspaper covering national and international business, you can search a one-year archive of news stories affecting companies, industries, and economies.

Also use this database to access five-year financials for the 500 largest U.S. companies (by gross revenue). To use this database, simply search the section that corresponds to the content you need for your assignment, be it a current business story from today’s headlines or an article from the past year (Searchable One-Year Archive), or financial data on a company (Five-Year Financials for the 500 largest U.S. companies).

Once you’ve mined these four exclusive databases for source material, move on to the detailed information on how to use the Internet for research assignments, also included in this Finding Sources tab. Finish by reviewing the section on primary sources, such as personal conversations, e-mails, interviews, or surveys.

Using Your Library

After you have selected your topic and gathered source material from the four databases of content on Research Navigator™, you may need to complete your research by going to your school library. Research Navigator™ does not try to replace the library, but rather help you understand how to use library resources effectively and efficiently.

You may put off going to the library to complete research assignments or research papers because the library can seem overwhelming. Research Navigator™ provides a bridge to the library by taking you through a simple step-by-step overview of how to make the most of your library time. Written by a library scientist, the “Using Your Library” tab explains:

• Major types of libraries
• What the library has to offer
• The role of the librarian
• Using library catalogs
• Using web sites for research
• Using electronic databases
• Finding print materials including texts, magazines, etc.
• How to choose the right library tools for a project
• How to make the most of research time in the library

In addition, when you are ready to use the library to complete a research assignment or research paper, Research Navigator™ includes 31 discipline-specific “library guides” for you to use as a roadmap. Each guide includes an overview of the discipline’s major subject databases, online journals, and key associations and newsgroups. Feel free to print them out and take them with you to the library!

Start Writing

Once you’ve become well-acquainted with the steps in the research process and gathered source materials from Research Navigator™ and your school library, it’s time to begin writing your assignment. Content found in this tab will help you do just that, beginning with a discussion on how to draft a research paper in an academic style. Other areas addressed include:

• Blending reference material into your writing
• Writing the introduction, body, and conclusion
• Revising, proofreading, and formatting the rough draft

This is also the tab where you will find sample research papers for your reference. Use them as a guide to writing your own assignment.

Endnotes & Bibliography

The final step in a research assignment is to create endnotes and a bibliography. In an era dubbed “The Information Age,” knowledge and words are taking on more significance than ever. Laws requiring writers to document or give credit to the sources of information, while evolving, must be followed.

Various organizations have developed style manuals detailing how to document sources in their particular disciplines. For writing in the humanities and social sciences, the Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines are the most commonly used, but others, such as those in The Chicago Manual of Style(CMS), are also required. The purpose of this Research Navigator™ tab is to help you properly cite your research sources. It contains detailed information on MLA, APA, CMS, and CBE styles. You’ll also find guidance on how to cite the material you’ve gathered right from this Research Navigator™ site!