EAS 333: Buddhist Meditation Traditions
Dr. Jiang Wu - Spring 2005
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On this page you will find information about
Writing Research Papers
Step One: Choosing a Topic
How to find a good topic?
- The following link will help you to select a topic Choosing a TOPIC
- You may also look in one of the Library's popular all-purpose Indexes such as Academic Search Premier or InfoTrac OneFile to read about various topics and/or issues.
Step Two: Gathering Materials or Finding Background Information
- Once your topic has been approved, you can start gathering information from a variety of reference sources, such as pertinent books, encyclopedias, and journals. Additional background information may be found in your lecture notes and textbooks. Librarians will be happy to show you how to use the various research tools within the library and may suggest other sources of information.
- Journals and magazines are important sources for up-to-date information in all disciplines. For research papers, you will be required to use scholarly sources. Therefore, it is very important to be able to distinguish scholarly writing from other types of writing. Click here to find out what is the difference between magazine articles and journal articles.
- The UA Library Catalog is always a good place to start. This is an online "search engine" specifically for all the items that UA library owns, such as books, journal articles, videos etc.
- WorldCat is one of the 300 paid databases of the UA Library. It brings together the holdings of hundreds or thousands of libraries around the world in a single searchable database. You may use this database to interlibrary loan materials that UA library does not own.
Step Three: Using Proper Search Strategies
- Boolean Search Strategy Builder (Using words like "and" and "or" to define your search)
- Other useful search tips:
- Use at least two keywords in your search
- Put most important terms first in your keyword list
- Be specific
- Be creative (try synonyms or related terms if search is not successful
Step Four: Evaluating Sources
- Evaluating your sources is a crucial step of the research process. You need to evaluate carefully each source to determine its appropriateness and quality.
- It is especially important to evaluation information that you find on the Web, because anyone can post anything on the web. You will have to determine whether the information on the web site is valuable. Go to Evaluating Web Information for specific criteria used to analyze web sites.
Step Five: Writing Your Paper
The UA Writing Center can also help you at any stage in your writing process. It is FREE and open to ALL UA Students in ANY class.
Step Six: Citing Sources
- Citing sources is an important part of your research. It gives proper credit to the authors of the materials you have used in writing your paper.
- Using someone else's ideas or phrases and representing their work as your own, either on purpose or through carelessness, is plagiarism (see UA's Code of Academic Integrity)
- To complete your paper, you need to follow specific citation formats.
Examples of these are located in the Library's Citation Guides.
Library Resources and Services
Sample Print Reference Source
Encyclopaedia of Buddhism: Scholarly and definitive work on all aspects of Buddhist thought, history and civilization. BQ128 E5 Main Ref.
Library Resources and Services
- Subject Heading meditation-buddhism is very useful for the UA library catalog search.
- Keywords such as meditation and buddhism or meditation and buddh* are also very helpful for the library catalog as well as other databases.
Ask A Librarian Instant Messaging is available during all hours the Main Library Information Commons is open
Ask A Librarian E-Mail is available at anytime! you can get a response within 2 working days.
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
Useful Library Subscribed Databases
Bibliography of Asian Studies
All subjects (especially humanities and social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia. Coverage: 1971 to present.
Academic Search Complete
Multidisciplinary database that includes some full-text articles.
Offers full text coverage for more than 3,600 journals and indexing and abstracts for all 4,500 journals (data as of 2/2003)
Humanities International Complete
It includes all data from American Humanities Index and Humanities International Index covering over 1,900 titles dating as far back as 1925.
Internet Resources
The Circle of Bliss: Online exhibition of Buddhist Meditational Art
DharmaNet InterLinks: Buddhist Studies : The links referenced here are to Buddhist resources that are of an academic nature.
Soka Gakkai International-USA (SGI-USA) : This is the official site of SGI-USA, an organization dedicated to the study and practice of Japan-based Nichiren Buddhism.
Zen Buddhism : Originating from the University of North Carolina, this site provides general information, texts, and links to other sites.
Virtual Religion Index : analyzes & highlights important content of religion-related websites to speed research. Hyperlinks are provided not only to homepages but to major directories & documents within.