This exercise is designed to help you learn the basic principles involved in doing research, as well as the specific things that you will need to know in order to use the resources available through our library. It is divided into five different research topics, representing a variety of different subjects.

There are some multiple choice questions related to each topic. For each question, choose the correct answer and write its number on the answer sheet next to the question number. Please note that in some cases, there are several correct answers; in that instance, one of the choices will be a list of all of the correct answers to the question, and that is the choice that you should make.

Many of the questions and possible answer choices in this exercise are followed by hypertext links. Some of these will tell you about general principles you need to follow in order to answer the question correctly. Others will give you information necessary to figure out the answer. It is suggested that you follow up on these links as you do this exercise.

If you do not understand something in this exercise, or if you have trouble with a question, come to the Reference Desk at the Henderson Library or telephone (912) 681-5645 (x5645 on campus). The people at the Reference Desk will not answer the question for you, but will try to help you figure out how to answer it.

If you are doing this exercise as an assignment for a class, your teacher will either give you the sheet on which you record your answers, or instruct you to print out the sheet from the Web and fill in the answers. Click here for the answer sheet. You should turn in the completed answer sheet to your teacher, who will grade it.

Even if you were not assigned to do this exercise for a class, you may want to do it on your own in order to learn or practice the research skills that you will need in college. To print out a sheet on which to fill in the answers, click here. In order to get it graded and find out whether you answered the questions correctly, you can either (1) turn it in at the Reference Desk at the Henderson Library, or (2) email your answers to us at "Ask a Librarian." We will grade it and get back in touch with you to let you know which questions you have gotten right.

Topic A: Questions 1-6. Suppose that you need to find out if there is a vaccine for AIDS.

1. Which of the following would a good source of information? Instructions | More Info

1. A medical textbook published in 1968.
2. One of your fraternity brothers.
3. A Web site from the National Centers for Disease Control that was updated just this week.
4. A highly-respected professor who is researching diseases of the immune system.
5. 1, 3, and 4.
6. 3 and 4, but not the others.

1. A book on AIDS published in 1990.
2. The Swinger's Guide to Avoiding STD's, published in 1975.
3. An article from JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association published in 2003.
4. An article from Newsweek.
5. A Web site that has a .com domain. Instructions
6. An article from Cosmopolitan.

3. Which of the following would most likely be the first letter of the call number for a book that gives you some useful background information for your paper on this topic? See an outline of the call number system. Instructions

1. Z
2. A
3. P
4. N
5. R
6. E

4. Suppose that you were searching for articles on this topic in the database Academic Search Premier. Which of the following would be an effective search statement (i.e., would yield some useful results) if the you have selected "standard search"? Instructions | More Info

1. vaccinating for AIDS
2. vaccinat* AND aids
3. how to protect yourself against AIDS
4. (vaccin* OR inoculat*) AND (aids OR hiv)
5. 2 and 4 above
6. none of the above

5. Suppose that you are searching a database that uses an asterisk (*) as the truncation sign. You want to capture records that contain any of these words: vaccination, vaccinate, vaccinated, or vaccine. Which of the following is the truncated form that you would use in your search statement? Instructions

1. vaccination*
2. vaccin*
3. vaccinat*
4. vacc*
5. vaccinate*
6. vacci*

6. Which of the following domains on the Internet are most likely to include reliable information on vaccination against AIDS? (NOTE: This does not mean that sites in those domains will always be reliable sources of information on this topic.) Instructions

1. .mil, .net, and .uk
2. .edu and .uk
3. .edu, .com, and .nz
4. .edu and .gov
5. .com and .net
6. .mil and .com

Topic B: Questions 7-10. Suppose that you have to do a project on how effective the marketing strategies used by Amazon.com are. More Info

7. Which of the following databases in GALILEO would definitely not contain anything of use to you in researching this project? Instructions

1. Lexis/Nexis
2. ABI Inform
3. Academic Search Premier
4. African-American Poetry
5. Social Sciences Index
6. All of the above might contain something useful

8. Which of the following sources would be of no help to you in researching this project? Instructions

1. An article that reports a survey of the sources from which people buy books, done in 1955.
2. An article on online marketing that appeared last month in The Wall Street Journal.
3. A textbook published in 2003 entitled Effective Modern Marketing Strategies.
4. An article about people who mail-order household appliances, done in 1985.
5. There are none of the sources listed above which would not be helpful.
6. 1 and 4 would not be helpful.

9. On what floor of the Henderson Library would you most likely find the book entitled Effective Modern Marketing Strategies? Look at the outline of the call number system to find out what letter the call number for a book on this topic would start with. Books with call numbers starting with A through J are on the third floor of the library. Those whose call numbers start with K through Z are on the fourth floor of the library.

1. First Floor
2. Second Floor
3. Third Floor
4. Fourth Floor
5. It is equally likely to be on any floor of the library.
6. There is no way that I can get the information that would help me decide which floor of the library this book is likely to be on.

10. Which of the following words would it definitely be worthwhile to include in your search statement when you search databases for useful articles? Instructions

1. marketing
2. advertising
3. plan
4. amazon* (where the truncation sign is *)
5. I would include all of the above words in my search.
6. 1, 2, and 4

Topic C: Questions 11-14. You have to do a paper on democracy in African countries.

11. Which of the following would not be a way that you could find out about databases which would provide information on this topic? Instructions
To answer this question, you will need to connect to the Henderson Library home page and try each of the following:

1. Go into GALILEO and click on the subject category "Social Sciences" in the tabs across the top.
2. Click on "databases" on the library home page. In the alphabetical list at the top of the screen, click on D for 'democracy.' Also, click on A for 'Africa.'
3. Click on "databases" on the library home page. Under "Database Groups," click on "Social Sciences."
4. From the library home page, click on "Using the Library." A course where you would study democracy in African countries would take place in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Georgia Southern University. Therefore, click on "Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Resources." Look through this page until you find "A Selected Guide to Information Sources in Political Science." See what databases are recommended in it.
5. After you have tried to find a good database yourself and have not succeeded, ask a librarian at the Reference Desk for help.
6. All of the above would be ways to find an appropriate database successfully.

12. Suppose that you need a good, working definition of democracy in order to write your paper. Which of the following would be the best source to use? Instructions | More Info

1. A dictionary of political science published by Columbia University Press.
2. A dictionary of political science that was published in 1985 in what was then East Germany, officially called the German Democratic Republic.
3. A dictionary of political science published by the John Birch Society.
4. The class notes of your friend in the class, who is a computer science major.
5. The definition of democracy that President Bush gave in one of his speeches about the War against Terrorism.
6. The definition of democracy given by a commentator on National Public Radio.

1. Check a world atlas to see if Chad is an African country.
2. Decide that the book is of no use because it does not mention democracy in the title.
3. Look at the back of the title page to see what year the book was published. Instructions
4. Try to find out something about the person who wrote it. This information may appear in the book itself. Ask yourself if this person is likely to know about the government of Chad. Instructions
5. Look for additional information about the government of Chad, besides this one book. Instructions
6. Look in the index at the back of the book to see if the word "democracy" appears. Instructions

14. Suppose that you find a book listed in the footnotes of one of the articles you are using. It is called The Ghosts of the British Empire: The Rocky Road to Democracy in African Nations. Which of the following searches in the library catalog should tell you if we have the book? To help you answer this question, go to the Henderson Library catalog and click on "Help" for search instructions.

1. A "Title" search in which you type ghosts of the british empire.
2. A "Title" search in which you type The Ghosts.
3. A "GIL Quick Search" in which you select "find all words" from the pulldown menu and type ghosts british democracy african. Instructions
4. 1 and 3 above.
5. All of the above.
6. None of the above.

Topic D: Questions 15-18. Suppose that your class is reading The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. You have to write a paper on some topic related to the book.

15. Which of the following sequences of letters and numbers will the call number of a copy of The Scarlet Letter start with? To answer this, you must look The Scarlet Letter up in the Henderson Library catalog. Select "Exact Search" and search by title.

1. PS1868 .B
2. PS1886 .A
3. PS1868 .A
4. PS1869 .A
5. PR1868 .A
6. None of the above.

16. Suppose you want to do your paper on the symbolism of the scarlet letter A in Hawthorne's novel. Which of the following are primary sources? Instructions | More Info

1. The novel, The Scarlet Letter.
2. A letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne in which he explains his symbolic intentions in writing The Scarlet Letter.
3. An article in the journal called The Explicator, entitled "The Symbolism of the Scarlet Letter A."
4. The laws of Puritan Boston which indicate the punishments for adultery.
5. All of the above.
6. 1, 2, and 4 above.

17. Suppose that you want to do your paper on nineteenth-century interpretations of The Scarlet Letter. Which of the following are primary sources? Instructions

1. A book published in 1895 entitled The Meaning of the Scarlet Letter.
2. A review entitled "Hawthorne's New Novel" which appeared in a newspaper soon after The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850.
3. A book by a college professor entitled Nineteenth-Century Interpretations of The Scarlet Letter, published in 1998.
4. 1 and 2 above.
5. All of the above.
6. None of the above.

18. You have searched a computer database and identified an article that you want to find. It is by E. Shaskan Bumas, and it is called "Fictions of the Panopticon: Prison, Utopia, and the Out-Penitent in the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne" (no kidding, this is a real article!). It appeared in volume 73 of a journal called American Literature in March, 2001. That article started on page 121. The call number for the journal is PER PS1.A6. Which answer below contains all of the information that you absolutely must have in order to find the article in the library? Instructions

1. Bumas' interpretation of The Scarlet Letter.
2. American Literature and PER PS1.A6.
3. "Fictions of the Panopticon" and PER PS1.A6.
4. Bumas (2001).
5. American Literature 73, n. 1 (Mar. 2001):121-46. PER PS1.A6.
6. Bumas, E. S. "Fictions of the Panopticon: Prison, Utopia, and the Out-Penitent in the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne."

Topic E: Questions 19 and 20. You are doing a paper for your biology class on how morning glories are pollinated.

19. Which of the following would not be a sensible thing to do as part of your research process? Instructions

1. Look at the call number chart to find out that books on botany, the study of plants, have call numbers starting with QK. Look through the QK section in the Reference Collection until you find a scientific drawing of a morning glory that shows all the different parts of the flower.
2. Look up and read the article on "pollination" in The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Instructions
3. Use the notes that your roommate took in her biology class where the teacher talked about the pollination of morning glories; you know that your roommate sometimes naps in class and that she doesn't like biology. Instructions
4. Find out the scientific name for morning glories. In some sources, you might need to use this name to search for information on your topic.
5. Watch the blooming morning glories in your back yard and note what insects and birds hover around them. You can use your observations in your paper. Bear in mind, however, that you have not done a controlled scientific study on the pollination of morning glories, and that you still need to read articles by scientists who have. Instructions
6. Look under the category "Science & Technology" and the sub-category "Biology" in GALILEO; find two or three databases that would list articles on your topic.

20. Say that you have found information on your topic on the Web sites of each of these organizations. Your teacher told you that you can only use one Web site among your sources. Which one would be the best to use? Instructions | More Info

1. The Web site of the Happy Gardeners of Fieldside Elementary School.
2. The Web site of the Botany Students' Club of Armstrong State University.
3. The Web site of the Garden Club of Decatur, Georgia.
4. The Web site of the Friendly Flowering Plant Nursery.
5. The Web site of the New York Botanical Garden.
6. The Web site of Bob Mills, an amateur (i.e., not professionally trained) botanist.