SI: Gale E-Books

Gale E-Books is a collection of subject-specific scholarly encyclopedias that we have online access to at the CSI Library. This tutorial will help you understand

a) how encyclopedias can help your research, and

b) how to locate relevant encyclopedia articles using the database.

On the right side of the screen is an active webpage that you can use to conduct the searches described in this guide. At the end of the guide there will be a short quiz and a chance to achieve a certificate of completion. 

Let's get started!

Note: if you are on a non-campus computer, you will need to sign in with your SLAS when prompted for the database to load.

For the purposes of this tutorial, let's assume our research topic is hip hop music

YOUR TURN-- search for hip hop music in the main search bar

In the search bar at the top of the screen, simply type in those terms and click search.

(By the way, you get different results if you search hip hop without the word music. Try it both ways!)

Your results will appear down the center of the screen, with abilities to limit the results further on the right-hand panel. The title in large type is the name of the article. The title of the encyclopedia below the article is the publication title and is hyperlinked.

Scroll down through your results. When selecting an article, you should consider:

-the title of publication

-the publication date of the article

-word count of the article (longer word count = more in-depth)

YOUR TURN: click on one of the article titles

Let's talk for a minute about the information in your selected encyclopedia article. You are likely to find the following types of information

• background information
• history of hip hop
• names of famous early hip hop musicians
• dates, facts, figures

Encyclopedias are reference books. Reference books are a set of facts that you can search by topic, and are the kind of books you might "refer to" rather than reading cover to cover.

Encyclopedias in particular give you background information about a topic, just like this article does about hip hop music. I get to learn when hip hop began, and where, and who the major players were. This type of information might be excellent for my introduction paragraph, where I am introducing my reader to my topic. (Remember to cite your source, even if you paraphrase!)

YOUR TURN: go back to the results list

At the right of the screen, see where it allows you to FILTER your results.

Choose by "document type."

Select Biographies.

Do you notice the biographies of various hip hop artists that appear in the search results?

To use this kind of resource well, you may want to read a few different articles from different encyclopedias to collect facts about hip hop to help you build your argument.

To help you out with this, the database gives you a tool bar at the top of the screen, allowing you to email articles to yourself, print articles, and generate a citation. You can use this citation in your paper if you end up using a number of facts from the same article, and need to let your reader know you didn't invent these facts.

Feel free to play around with this database more by searching for different topics, selecting articles from encyclopedias, and then generating the citations. You can also email yourself the article to read later if you find something useful to your work!

Certificate

Please enter your name and email address to retrieve a copy of your completed quiz.

You can enter multiple email addresses separated by commas. If you are doing this for a class, you may need to enter your instructor's email address also.

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