The number of history reference works has proliferated at a tremendous rate in the past few decades. The effective use of these tools is one of the most important research skills of the historian. Bibliographies should be understood as more than just books that list books. The design and workings of these tools are meant to influence search…

With rare exceptions, the assignment of a research paper elicits groans from students and sighs from their teachers, or worse. While the research paper became a fixture in composition textbooks and classrooms by the 1940s, its origins can be traced to fundamental changes in the American academy after the Civil War. The language of the term paper…

Academic librarians who have faculty status must meet the same criteria for promotion and tenure as other faculty members, including doing research. However, library schools may not be training librarians adequately in the research skills required for entry level academic positions. In order to determine whether library schools in the United…

Because research in speech communication is predominantly the study of human behavior, a major goal of researchers in the field is to provide sound communication propositions about people in general or specific groups of people. A review of recent speech communication research reported in journals reveals that researchers in the social and…

Students in college composition courses often have great difficulty learning to write research papers. They can learn to write better research papers through a series of steps: learning to read for the main point, writing opinion papers on topics that are personally meaningful to them, preparing lists of questions implicit in the opinion papers in…

This paper describes and outlines a college level, energy geography course which uses a group review process approach. The goal of the course is to bring together students from across the university with a strong interest in energy problems to pursue areas of individual concern subject to peer review. The group review process fosters communication…

A five-week tutorial minicourse offered by the Douglas/Cook College Writing Center at Rutgers University helps students develop skills in research writing. The first service the Writing Center offers is a "term paper strategy session," in which students meet with a reference librarian to examine the various reference sources available.…

Students should be taught a variety of study skills, so that these skills will develop into habits that free them to think about the information presented in their textbooks. Although the study skills are common to all content areas, their application varies with each specific subject. Perhaps the foremost skill is attacking the assignment, which…

This paper discusses a course designed to equip students to use library resources while conducting academic research. By employing the methods of individualized instruction, a minimal teaching staff can direct the learning of large groups of students. Identifiable competencies are developed and can be assessed in: (1) the critical thinking which…

Describes Datamondo, an instructional package that introduces the use of a newspaper database in humanities teaching at the secondary level in Italy. The effectiveness of the package in developing basic linguistic skills and as a research tool is evaluated. (8 references) (Author/CLB)

Each year that the author of this paper, an English instructor at Moorhead College (Minnesota), teaches the first-year "research paper," one instructor turns more and more to collaborative writing work. And she admits that some of her motives in reshaping the research paper in collaborative ways can seem to be based in assisting herself…

A study investigated research training experiences of surgical faculty in one medical school. Information concerning individual characteristics, preresidency research experiences, research training attitudes, important research experiences, and current activity was elicited. Results confirmed that early experiences allowing interaction with…

Counseling professionals' and counseling psychology students' interest in performing research seems to be waning. Identifying the impediments to graduate students' interest and participation in research is important if systematic efforts to engage them in research are to succeed. The Research Self-Efficacy Scale (RSES) was designed to measure…

Efforts have been made by the Cornell University Libraries (New York) reference staff to assist students with their library research for a popular undergraduate course in human sexuality. Librarians have found the course to be a serious problem for both their reference and stack collections as most students do not understand research strategy,…

The Vanderbilt Summer Research Program in diabetes, which was designed to interest medical students in research careers and diabetes care, was evaluated. The program provides stipends to 20 sophomore and junior medical students for 12 weeks of preceptor-supervised laboratory research work, clinical experience, and classroom instruction. The…