College Survival Guide

Hello everyone. In this guide you will learn the basic essentials to surviving college. I know what your thinking, why do I need a guide for that? Well ladies and gentlemen, college is not the 13th grade, as our former president Bill Clinton had put it. It's a lot more involving then that. In college you have to manage you time more and study and not go out and drink and party like you think college is really about. No sir, it's not all what is made out to be. Here are the things this guide will cover and help you with college.

Ð'* Conducting Successful Library and Internet Searches

Ð'* Upholding Academic Honesty

Ð'* Developing Effective Study Skills

Ð'* Manage Time Wisely

Ð'* Setting and Achieving Goals

Ð'* Those are the main points we will hit in this guide. Also I will include 10 tips for most of the subject we will be covering in this guide at the end of the guide that will help you along when you need some quick tips. So lets get started.

The first thing we are going to discuss her is library searches. Library searches are not as difficult as internet searches for one main reason. You know what book is fiction and what book is non fiction. You see in library's they separate there non fiction and fiction books so you will not confuse the two. The library has an index with a list of all there book, there author and where they are located. "There are hundreds of periodical indexes that list citations to articles. Although these indexes may look different, most allow you to search their contents by using keywords or combinations of keywords to get a list of article citations. Knowing how to do a good keyword search is the key to conducting successful library research" (1 University of Minnesota Library, Paragraph 1) So keys to finding what you need in the index you are going to need some key words. Here are some tips in finding the right key words.

"Choose words that communicate main topic ideas

The keywords you use for a search should clearly identify your research topic. Some words are unique to your topic and define important concepts from your topic. Other words are general terms and could be used in just about any topic.

Let's say, for instance, that your research question is Does biology play a dominant role in determining human behavior

Two main categories of ideas emerge from this topic:

Topic words Related words

biology genetics, genes, eugenics, nature, nurture

behavior personality, criminality, mental illness

Notice that some of the words and phrases in this list (biology, behavior) came directly from the research topic, while others (such as genetics, genes, eugenics, nature, nurture, personality, criminality, mental illness) are words that are related to the main idea.

Significantly, these words are all nouns--they each name a person, place, or thing. Nouns make some of the best keywords" (2 University of Minnesota Library, paragraphs 1-4).

Now that looks hard, but when you start to do it, you will get the hang of it before you know it. Now here are some key words you should avoid when looking for information in the index.

"Words to avoid

The words role and determining also appear in the topic but they are not effective words to use as keywords. They are too general to be of much help. They might appear in connection with a range of subjects, from biology to economics to fine art. Role and determining do not describe a main idea that is unique to your topic" (2 University of Minnesota Library, paragraphs 6-7).

Avoid these kinds of words in Keyword searching

role determining

causes research

effects trends

So now you have some help with library searches let's move to internet. Internet searches are a little harder because you do not know whether they are correct of not unless they are from a strong source. It's sometimes hard to find information on the internet because of this. Here are some tips in doing internet searches.

Ð'* "Selecting a search engine to use for the search.

Ð'* Entering the appropriate key word(s) or phrase.

Ð'* Selecting the best sites to visit.

Ð'* Visiting sites to determine if the information you need is there"

(Retrieved from Science Education Partnerships, 2003).

Now here are some good search engines to use when finding research on your paper.

Ð'* "Google

Google is fast, easy to use and big. Presently, it looks at more of the Web than any of the other search engines. After typing in your keyword(s) Google allows you to search for websites that contain the keyword or image files if what you really want is a photograph.

Ð'* Alta Vista

Alta Vista is one of the oldest search engines. One interesting feature is the use of Babel Fish to translate the web pages you find.

Ð'* Dogpile

Dogpile is a metasearch service. It queries the databases of other search engines and allows you to customize your search by limiting which databases are reported.

Ð'* Metacrawler

Yet another metasearch service that suggests alternate keywords or phrases to refine your search.

Ð'* Yahoo!

Yahoo is an extremely popular search service and has a reputation for helping people find information easily" (Science Education Partnerships, 2003).

Using the right key words that we discussed earlier are also important when doing internet searches also. Make sure you are using the right key words when researching your paper.

Upholding academic honesty is very important. Plagiarism, which we will go over later, is not tolerated in the academic community. That is the biggest