An important thing I aim to help people learn in English 1006 concerns the kind of research that gives people access to the sorts of things you need to be able to find out about in university classes (as well as for pretty much any career you might want to be involved in). The assignment for today was created to give you experience in doing that kind of research. If you do not have a report of that process, a research diary, with you, you need to go do that. If you were not in class last time you need to read the prompts and other documents and do what you can to learn from the experience.

You'll remember that last time I suggested five possible "starting points" for finding out about the questions you asked.

• Harriet Irving Library WorldCat.
• Google Scholar.
• Harriet Irving Library Journals & Newspapers.
• Google and wikipedia.
• Harriet Irving Library Reference Materials.

I'm hoping people can learn from each others' and their own experiences. To begin that, get back in the current working groups.

In class today

You should have with you a research diary, which includes, as the last prompt said,

a record of every step in your investigation -- where you looked, what search terms you used (even, or especially, the ones that didn't work). Make this a diary. Each step you take should be headed with the specific terms you used, and a sentence or two saying what you found there, and if you went further (looking at a particular text, or following a link).

• One should be composed of two or three things you learned, or that some members of your group learned from others, that you didn't know before, about research -- about the kinds of search terms that work or don't, about what particular data bases are good for (and aren't), about making choices or learning as you go. Write these out, clearly enough that someone reading them who  wasn't sitting with you will know exactly what you mean, on one side of the form you'll have.
• The second should be, on the other side of the form, a list of two or three questions you'd like answered about the research process, about data bases or search terms, about locating resources. Again, the questions should be written so clearly and fully that they will be comprehensible if read by someone outside your group who wasn't there for your discussion, and has no access to the diaries.