The College Student's Research Companion

Arlene R. Quaratiello with Jane Devine, The College Student's Research Companion: Finding, Evaluating, and Citing the Resources You Need to Succeed. Neal-Schuman, 2011. 183 pages. ISBN: 978-1-55570-729-3.

Arlene R. Quaratiello's The College Student's Research Companion is a good introduction to the research process. It helps the reader to pick a topic and narrow it to a researchable topic. Second, it provides information on different types of sources and where to find them. Third, it shows how to evaluate the resources the researcher finds. Fourth, it provides general information on searching databases. Then, in different chapters it covers searching the web, the online catalog, and periodical databases. Fifth, it provides instruction on how to use reference sources for your research. Last, it covers taking notes, plagiarizing, and citing your sources. The book is written in a user-friendly way that will be understandable to beginning college students. It would also be a useful guide for librarians teaching students how to do research.

Chapter one discusses developing a research plan. First, the student must select a topic if one is not assigned to her. The author recommends a topic that interests the student. Second, the topic must be narrowed to make it a researchable topic. The student at this time might write a preliminary thesis and preliminary research question. It will probably develop or change in the process of research.

Next, the student will want to develop a research plan. They will need to identify the type of resources they will need to satisfy their information need. Then they will need to know where and how they can access these resources. The author provides information about different types of sources: Web-based resources, book, periodical resources, and other resources. The student will need also to plan their time for doing the research. The author asserts, "The research process is time-consuming" (14).

The author in chapter two discusses a method for evaluating resources. She calls the method PACAC. It stands for Purpose, Authority, Currency, Accuracy, and Content. The first step in evaluating resources is discovering why it was produced. The second step is to answer the question, who wrote it? Why should the author be trusted? Do they have the credentials or experience to be considered a reliable source. A third step is to determine when it was published. The currency of an item is more important for the sciences and the medical disciplines than it is for the Humanities. The fourth step is to determine its accuracy. You will need to have a working knowledge of the topic to determine a source's accuracy. This knowledge can be acquired through reference sources. The final step is determining if the source meets the information need of the student. The student must ask, "Does it answer the main questions that you have?" (29).

Chapter three discusses the pros and cons of searching the web. There are different types of websites: commercial sites, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, government agencies, personal websites, country sites, and etc. It is important to evaluate websites by the PACAC method. The author also provides information on searching the web. Some of these tips are Boolean searching, advance searches, searching by subject directories. One of the problems of the web is that you never know if a site will be available the next day. A second problem is it is difficult to determine the author of the site since anyone can post on the web.

Chapter four covers searching databases generally. The author uses the example of online catalog to discuss the structure of databases. The author provides examples of different online records. She shows how a record for a book contains different fields: author, title, publisher, subject headings, etc. Another type of databases is a periodicals database. The database is made of thousands of records which includes different fields: article title, author, periodical title, subject headings or terms, etc. These fields are important because you can search these fields. Next, the author discusses searching these databases. These databases can be searched either by keywords of subject terms. An effective way to search with keywords is by boolean: AND, OR, NOT. OR broadens the search and AND or NOT narrows the search. The NOT is not used often. Combining AND, OR, NOT helps the searcher be more specific and get more relevant results. The problem with keyword searching is that the searcher can get a lot of results that are not relevant to their topic. The searcher can be more specific by doing field searching or subject searching. Databases use controlled vocabulary, so the student does not necessarily know what the terms are. An effective way to over come this is to select a few relevant results from keyword searching and see what subject terms are used for each article.

Following chapter four there are individual chapters for searching online catalogs and periodical databases. Chapter seven covers using reference resources. These sources are used for topic selection, background information, and to find out different facts. These sources include: Encyclopedias, both general and subject specific; dictionaries, sources to find statistical and geographic information; chronological information, biographical information, finding people and organizations, quotations, etc. Chapter eight discusses integrating sources into the paper. It provides information on quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. The next part discusses how to avoid plagiarism. The last part of the chapter explains how to cite your sources.

The College Student's Research Companion is a user-friendly guide to doing research in college. It provides information on the research process, going from determining your topic to finding resources to citing your sources. At the end of chapter questions are provided to apply the concepts taught in the chapter. The answers to the questions are in the back of the book. A brief citation style guide is included for MLA, Chicago, and APA. The book is short, easy to easy, and easy to understand. The authors tried to emphasize concepts since information sources change so rapidly. I have read this book multiple times and have used it to teach students how to do research.