Immigration project, Spring 2019 (Spanish III, Joria): Home

When doing research, we strongly recommend that you always start with authoritative sources and library resources (our print collection and/or our library databases)

1)  Brainstorm keywords that you might use to find resources

• You might need to think of synonyms for some of your terms, similar terms, or related terms, all which provide different ways to search
  • Hispanic, Latino
  • immigrant, immigration
• You might need to search more broadly (use a more general term)

 
2)  Start your research with authoritative sources

• Books in our library (see the block below for a list of recommended books)
• Library databases (see suggested library databases below)
   

3) Please do not start your research by Googling or going to websites

• You should always start with authoritative sources
• If you have searched both books and the library databases and are still not finding information, think about the keywords you are using
• If you know you're using the correct keywords, but are still not finding information, you can speak with Ms. Burke or Ms. Jewell to see if they have recommendations 
• If you still need additional information after trying all the above, and you choose to use a website, do not include a website in your research unless you have accurately evaluated the website, and are able to point to specific evidence why the website is reliable and authoritative 

There is a cart of books in Sra. Joria's classroom on immigration which you can use to find information on your topic.
 
However, you also may find it helpful to search the online catalog for books in our library to:

• locate other books in our library that aren't on the cart, or
• help you find a chapter or section from one of the books on the cart

A Keyword search will find chapters or sections of a book that might be on your topic

• By default, you are searching the catalog by keyword.
• Sample keyword search: Mexican Americans

A Subject search will find books where the entire book is about your topic

• When in the online catalog, click the plus sign to the right of the search bar to change how you search
• From the Type drop down menu, click the arrow and select Subject in the list
• Sample subject searches:
  • United States—Emigration and immigration
  • United States—Emigration and immigration—History

These are not the only books on immigration.  You will find other books if you search the catalog for your specific topic

Reference books:

• American Immigrant Cultures: Builders of a Nation. Edited by David Levinson and Melvin Ember, 2 vol., Macmillian Reference, 1997.  REF 305.8 AME
• Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America. Edited by Robert von Dassanowsky, 3 vol., Gale, 2000.  REF 305.8 GAL
• Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Edited by Barbara A. Tenenbaum, 5 vol., Scribner, 1996.  REF 980.003 ENC 
• Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. Edited by Suzanne Oboler and Deena J. González, 4 vol., Oxford UP, 2005. REF 973.046 OXF

Non-reference books:

• Daniels, Roger. American Immigration: A Student Companion. Oxford UP, 2001.  304.8 DAN       
• A variety of books on Hispanic Americans, shelved under the call number 305.868

1) Searching library databases

When you search library databases, don't search in complete sentences.  Databases are not like Google.  

• Use a couple of keywords, combined with the word AND:
  • immigration and Mexico
• Don't put more than three keywords together in the same search 
• If you want to search a phrase, put quotation marks around it:
  • "Mexican Americans"

2) Recommended library databases

Below is a list of library databases that may be helpful, depending on your topic.

• EBSCO Discovery Search: searches almost all of our library databases at once. This can retrieve an overwhelming amount of results, so if you're having difficulties finding useful information via the EBSCO Discovery Search, try searching a single database instead of all at once
   
• EBSCO Ebooks Academic edition (ebooks)
   
• JSTOR (scholarly journal articles)
   
• Gale Virtual Reference Library (reference books in electronic format)
   
• ProQuest Central Student (magazine, newspapers, and some scholarly journal articles)
   
• Academic Search Ultimate (magazine, newspapers, and some scholarly journal articles)
   
• The 8 ABC-Clio History databases (search 8 at once)
  • Note: for better results, put quotation marks around phrases when searching
  • ABC-Clio is the publisher name; each of the 8 databases within that have their own name. The information in these databases are original content to the database, and not published in print
     
• Artstor (images for your photo card)
  • Look at the sample MLA Practice Template for how to cite an image from a library database
     
• Britannica Image Quest (images for your photo card)
  • Citing images from Britannica can be challenging.  Look at the sample MLA Practice Templates on this page for examples of how to cite images

There is a cart of books in Sra. Joria's classroom on immigration which you can use to find information on your topic. However, you also may find it helpful to search the online catalog to:

• locate other books in our library that aren't on the cart, or
• help you find a chapter or section from one of the books on the cart

You always need to cite what sources you used in your research, to give credit for any idea that is not yours. Citations are also required for any pictures or images used.  See the bottom of this page for info on citing images.

The MLA, 8th edition page on our library website has more details on how to cite sources, including works cited sample sheets, as well as a link to citation help from Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL).

As you create your citations, we know that some library databases give sample citations at the bottom of the page.  Sometimes that information is incomplete or incorrect (for example, the citations provided by many of the EBSCO databases are incorrect!).  Use the information from the sample citation to help create your own version of the citation for the source. Don't copy and paste the citation provided from the database into a Word document. 

You might find it helpful to complete a MLA Template to create a citation for each source you used for this project.  

When citing information from books, you usually provide the following information:

• author of the source
• the title of the source if you are citing an article from a reference book, or a collection of essays
• the title of the container
• any other contributors to the source (editors, translators, etc.)
• an edition (if there is one) or a volume/issue (if there is one)
• the publisher of the source
• the date it was published (most recent date given)
• page numbers (if the book is a reference book or a book made up of essays by different authors). Don't use page numbers if you're citing a book by a single author  

If you are citing a source in a library database, almost all of the databases have information that was originally in print.  On the MLA Practice Template, Container 1 would be where you provide all the information about the original print source (book, reference source, scholarly journal, magazine, image), and then Container 2 would be where you provide the information about the library database you used. (Two exceptions are Britannica School and all of the databases published by ABC-Clio.  Content from those databases were never in print, so all the info would be in container 1)

If you found an article in an online database, the information you need to include in container 2 is:

• the title of the container (database)
• the publisher of the source (database publisher)
• the date of the database
• the URL of the database (if required by your teacher).  Use a short version of the URL (typically up to the .com, .org, etc.).  Do not include http:// in the URL

After you have created a citation for each of your sources, you can create a works cited list based on the MLA Templates you filled out. Type out each MLA Template entry in a Word document in the exact order as written on the template, complete with punctuation at the end of each line.  Then, format the works cited list by making sure it has the following:

• The entire works cited list is double spaced, with one inch margins on each side
• The heading Works Cited is centered at the top of the works cited list
• The entries in the works cited list are in alphabetical order
• The first line of each citation is flush to the left, then each subsequent line of the citation is indented

Blank copies of the MLA Template are in the library. You can also download a copy of the MLA Template to your computer using the link above this block

Below are three examples of a MLA Template and the labeled pages so you can see an example of sources cited using the MLA Template.  

Below are several examples of how to cite images that you find in a library database (Artstor or Britannica ImageQuest) or from a website.

You can use these examples to properly cite an image.  Follow the examples and include the punctuation provided in the MLA Practice Template.  Once you've filled out all the fields, you can type up the citation in that order, including the proper punctuation at the end of each field.  Next, italicize the portions of the citations that need italicization.  Finally, format your works cited list properly (header, double spacing, indentation, alphabetization), and you should be all set.

Citing images from Britannica ImageQuest can be difficult. Please DO NOT copy the citation from Britannica ImageQuest, because it is incomplete. You can look at the citation provided by the database to find some of the information you need to cite it properly, but you also have to add in additional information.

There are three different examples below of how to cite an image from Britannica ImageQuest. We suggest you look at all three examples if you are having difficulties.