Self-assessment Essay

During high school, I had to do a lot of research and write essays on them in my English class. I would go online to Google.com and search on my topics. I thought that was the best way to do research and get the most accurate information from. This is my first quarter at CSU East Bay and my first course in Library 1210. After attending the first week of class I realized that there was a lot more to research than I thought there was. And I also found out the sources that I used to think were scholarly sources they actually were just sources for general readers.

In the beginning of the quarter I thought I would not make it through this class because I absolutely had no idea of what was going on and what you were talking about. Some of the things were new to me. But as time passed by and I did assignments I was able to understand what was going on and what I have to do to score well in this class.

There were many things I learnt from this class. The first most important thing this class taught me was to interact with CSU East Bay’s Library. I became more familiar about finding books in the library, using their databases, using other reference books that I believe would be useful for my future courses.

Now when I go search on Google for information, I would limit my search by using the advanced search feature. Then after scanning through the website I would look for some background information of the website to make sure the information posted is creditable. I became familiar with this strategy when I did the first few assignments on exploring the web and evaluating the topic.

Now if I were to do a research on any topic the first thing I would do is create a Boolean and use the advance search feature which allows me to limit my search and would also give me lesser results which is relevant to my topic rather than a general search. Then I would use one of the library databases call JSTOR to located a journal or even try searching it on the Academic Search Primere. I prefer journals because they are recent, written by scholars, and is revised before it’s published. There were times when I had problems finding the bibliography, I would talk to people at the reference desk and ask them for help. Then I would use HAYSTAC, another database of the CSU East Bay library to locate books. After that I would take a look at the references resources where there are many encyclopedias located. I still remember the activity in class you gave us to go out and find books of on our topic. And I guess by using all the following techniques I learnt in class I am pretty sure that my research process is effective.

Overall, I feel I’ve learnt a lot from the in class exercises and the assignments, especially the research project. After the ten weeks of the library class I can confidently say that I have achieved better knowledge about doing research which gives me a feeling of being educated. I think this course was very useful to me and most important of all is that I know I will be secured while doing research for anything whether it is related to the courses in college or not. And definitely the knowledge I gain through this course about doing research is a lifelong treasure.

Thank you for everything. Hope you have a nice holiday!

Final Exam

Dead Sea Scrolls

Today I began my research using www.dictionary.com, because I was unclear about the topic so I just wanted to know the meaning. In the search box, I typed in Dead Sea Scrolls. I found out that Dead Sea Scrolls are a number of leather, papyrus, and copper scrolls dating from c100 b.c. to a.d. 135, containing partial texts of some of the books of the Old Testament and some non-Biblical scrolls, in Hebrew and Aramaic, and including apocryphal writings, commentaries, hymns, and psalms: found in caves near the NW coast of the Dead Sea beginning in 1947. And the citation for this source is: "dead sea scrolls." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 04 Dec. 2007. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dead sea scrolls>.

Then I went to Britannica online just to like compare and to gain more general understanding of the topic. So I went back to our library website and looked up the term “dead sea scrolls” in Britannica online. I got 91 results. One of them which I found interesting gave me an introduction of what Dead Sea Scrolls were. It mainly talked about how mostly Hebrew, manuscripts (of leather, papyrus, and copper) were first found in 1947 on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is among the most important finds in the history of modern archaeology. Study of the scrolls has enabled scholars to push back the date of a stabilized Hebrew Bibleto no later than AD 70, to help reconstruct the history of Palestine from the 4th century BC to AD 135, and to cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of rabbinic Judaism and on the relationship between early Christian and Jewish religious traditions. And the citation for this source is:"Dead Sea Scrolls." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.4 Dec. 2007 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9029628>. Next I decided I would choose another content source. At first I used the Encyclopedia Britannica now I’ll try using the dictionary which is what I wanted to do from the start. I typed in the search term Dead Sea Scrolls and there were no results.
And from what I’ve learnt in class about finding out if the source is reliable or not, I’m pretty confident that this article is based on facts and should be reliable considering the source is an authorized encyclopedia like what you’ve told us before in class.
Now that I am feel much more confident about my topic. I decided to use the first database I learned about in class which was the Academic Search Premier. I entered the term Dead Sea Scrolls into the search box and got 934 results. I found a book review that I thought was relevant to my topic. The title of the book is The Dead Sea Scrolls: What Have We Learned? And the Persistent link is: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=27426989&site=ehost-live
Then I tried playing around with the terms. I used "DEAD Sea scrolls" and got 345 results. I noticed that they were similar results to the previous one. Next I just typed in “SCROLLS” and I got 30 results. I found an article that which I thought would be helpful in my research. The title of the article is Purity and the Dead Sea Scrolls--Current Issues. It talks about how purity in early Judaism has fascinated modern scholars and proved to be a particularly fruitful vein of study in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The recovery, transcription and publication of numerous fragments of texts over the last two decades have changed the portrait of the Scrolls and the communities behind them from what was previously envisaged. To the original characterization of the sectarian Scrolls as the work of pious monks awaiting the eschaton, we can now detect a strong emphasis on Jewish law throughout these texts. Matters of purity and cult form the majority of these laws. And the bibliographic data for that article is Harrington, Hannah K.Currents in Biblical Research; Jun2006, Vol. 4 Issue 3, p397-428, 32p and the Persistent link is: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=21332161&site=ehost-live
Then I tried using the term dead sea and scrolls even though I got more results than the previous search term I entered it all seemed the same, I saw only few new topics.
Next I tried searching in the science direct database hoping I would get closer to what I’m looking for since it’s related to archaeology but found nothing useful at all. I did a quick search with the term Dead Sea Scrolls and I found 4 articles related to this topic. For a moment, I got confused thinking that since it’s a science related database I should be getting more relevant results to my topic so why is it that I’m getting nothing?
My next attempt was JSTOR. The reason why I chose J STOR was because I think going through journals would give me the idea and more depth of my topic. So I typed in Dead Sea Scrolls. For my previous research assignment I had used JSTOR and it gave me a lot of results. So this time I was expecting the same. This time I got 4090 results. I was like wow, but as you told me earlier in my blog comment that it's not the number of results; it's the number of relevant results that can be explored in depth. So I took your advice. One journal that interested me was, The Origin of the So Called Dead Sea Scrolls Tovia Wechsler The Jewish Quarterly Review > New Ser., Vol. 43, No. 2 (Oct., 1952), pp. 121-139 Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-6682%28195210%292%3A43%3A2%3C121%3ATOOTSC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z
And the other journal that I found interesting wasThe Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Approach A. N. Poliak The Jewish Quarterly Review > New Ser., Vol. 49, No. 2 (Oct., 1958), pp. 89-107 Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-6682%28195810%292%3A49%3A2%3C89%3ATDSSAN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N
This journal talks about how the Dead Sea Scrolls studies are currently polarized by debate over whether or not an Essene community dwelling at Qumran produced the Scrolls. For over thirty years interpretations of the Scrolls were dominated by the "traditional" (as it is now called) assumption that the Dead Sea Scrolls were copied, collected and stored by Essene sectarians at Qumran. The last decade has witnessed growing dissent to that traditional viewpoint.
Next I tried the HAYSTAC. I entered the search term Dead Sea Scrolls and got around 86 relevance topics. I found 2 books which I thought were most relevant to my topic. To my surprise I didn’t find anything from the reference section. But as for as I read the abstract of the book I think it would really help me on my research. The first one is
The Dead Sea scrolls : a very short introduction Lim, Timothy HOxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005
Location: Book Stacks
Call no. : BM487 .L54 2005

And the other book is

Archaeology and the Dead Sea scrolls Vaux, Roland de, 1903-1971London, published for the British Academy by the Oxford University Press, 1973
Location: Book Stacks
Call no. : DS110.Q8 V313 1973



I tried to choose books according to the year so that I could compare the old material and the new ones.
Finally, I decided to do what I do best. And that was search in World Wide Web. At first I was so tempted to google the term Dead Sea Scroll out since I didn’t quite get the topic but then I thought I’d just understand the meaning and try it the way we learnt it in class first. So I looked up my search terms on www.google.com. In google I tried manipulating the words around: dead sea scrolls, “dead sea scrolls”, dead sea, scrolls, dead sea, dead sea scrolls pictures but at the end I ended up using the term Dead Sea Scrolls and got 1,540,000 results. I was really overwhelmed by the results I got. And one of the links was: http://www.centuryone.com/25dssfacts.html and I am pretty sure this source is reliable because it’s copy righted from the century one bookstore.
Through the World Wide Web I found out about the The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea between the years 1947 and 1956. The Scrolls can be divided into two categories biblical and non-biblical. And in all, scholars have identified the remains of about 825 to 870 separate scrolls. And also that, the Dead Sea Scrolls enhances our knowledge of both Judaism and Christianity. They represent a non-rabbinic form of Judaism and provide a wealth of comparative material for New Testament scholars, including many important parallels to the Jesus movement. They show Christianity to be rooted in Judaism and have been called the evolutionary link between the two.
By doing this research today I’ve definitely learned more about Dead Sea Scrolls. And the 2 databases that I would search for more information would be CQ researcher and Proquest Newspaper. My two topic questions are: What is Qumran and what relation do the Dead Sea Scrolls have to it? And How did the scrolls come to be deposited in the caves?

Lesson 8 Assignment

1. What was discussed today in class?
Answer: Today we discussed about the different kind of citation formats and also did a few practice samples of it.
2. Describe two differences between MLA and APA citation formats.
Answer: The differences between MLA and APA citation formats is that APA style citations are used to cite writings that have a social science focus. On the other hand MLA style citations are used to cite writings that have humanities focus. The other differences between both these formats is that in a MLA formatted paper, the author's name, both first and last name is spelled out on the bibliography page. In APA, only the last name of the author is spelled out while the first name is an initial.

Review Assignment

Topic: Ancient Greek Theater

Research Process

On November 8, 2007 I began my research using the first database I learned about in class which was the Academic Search Premier. I entered the term Ancient Greek Theater into the search box and got only 8 results. Then I tried using another term which was Ancient Greek Theat* thinking that I would get more results and to my surprise instead of getting more results I got the exact same results. Out of the 8 results I found only one interesting. It was an article which presented information on the planning of the Greek government to close two of its ancient theaters for repair. The bibliographic data for that article is Ancient Greek Theaters to Close. New York Times, 7/17/2006, Vol. 155 Issue 53643, pE2-E2, 1/9p; (AN 21908009).

I wasn’t that satisfied with my first attempt so I tried doing what you did in the sample review exercise. I kind of thought it was wise to gain a general understanding of the topic. This time I used Britannica Online to learn more about my topic. This time I got 129 results. And here’s what I found out from the article:

· "theatre" also spelled theater

· The word is from the Greek theatron, “a place of seeing.”

· A theatre usually has a stage area where the performance itself takes place.

· Since ancient times the evolving design of theatres has been determined largely by the spectators' physical requirements for seeing and hearing the performers and by the changing nature of the activity presented.

And the bibliographic data for that article is MLA style: "theatre." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 14 Nov. 2007 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9110172>.

And from what I’ve learnt in class about finding out if the source is reliable or not, I’m pretty confident that this article is based on facts and should be reliable considering the source is an authorized encyclopedia like what you’ve told us before in class.

Next I tried searching in the Historical Abstract database hoping I would get closer to what I’m looking for since it’s related to history but found nothing useful at all. Later I tried accessing in J STOR. The reason why I chose J STOR was because I think going through journals would give me the idea and more depth of my topic. So I typed in Ancient Greek Theater. It gave me 8057 results. My first impression when I saw the results was “wow!” I really couldn’t believe it that after searching for quite sometime and not getting the desired results now there’s so many. I took a look at the first few pages and I found a few interesting journals. One of them was The Entrances and Exits of Actors and Chorus in Greek Plays Margarete Bieber
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9114%28195410%2958%3A4%3C277%3ATEAEOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4

It talks about how the chorus and the actors enter and exits and where are they staged on the stage. So through this journal I kind of got the idea about the positioning in a Greek play.

Then I considered using the advance search. I put in the term greek theater AND greek theatre by using these terms I got 4770 results. Even though I got lesser results from the previous search I was still positive about finding something. Out of all I chose this one. Review: The Greek Stage Author(s) of Review: William Allan
Reviewed Work(s): Drama und Theater: Ausgewählte Schriften zum griechischen Drama by H.-J. Newiger
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-840X%281998%292%3A48%3A2%3C265%3ATGS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

I then decided to search in the Haystac for books on the Ancient Greek Theater. At first I tried typing in theater just to see how many results I would get. I was just curious about how many results would show up by just using the word theater so that I could compare and see with the other results once I had narrowed down the term. By using just theater I got more than 3000 results. And just to see what results I will get with these terms I entered them individually. Theater, "theater", "theat*", greek theatre, greek theater, preclassical, classical, hellenistic and ancient greek and theatre/theater. It was really fascinating to see all the different results I was getting.

Then when I narrowed down my search term to ancient greek theater/theatre and I got only 12 results. One of it was A short introduction to the Ancient Greek theater
Ley, Graham Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1991

LOCATION Book Stacks
CALL NO. PA3201 .L47 1991

I went ahead and checked out the book from the library and I found out a lot of interesting things about my topic from this book. There were a few visuals in it which was really helpful for me in order to imagine how must have it looked like during the ancient times. This book talks about Greek Drama, The Organization of the Festivals, Lesser Dramatic Performances at Athens ,The Writer, The Theater ,Stenography Masks, Costume, and Properties, Chorus ,Actors ,Reading Texts as Scripts, The Playing Space, The Audience, Delivery ,Distance and Physical Action,ChoralSong and Choral Action , Parody, Translation and Adaptation and Appendix: Chronology of the Surviving Plays. So by going through this book I really got to know more in details about what greek theater is all about.

Then I tried clicking on another link which was Illustrations of Greek drama,
Trendall, A. D. (Arthur Dale), 1909-
[London] Phaidon; [New York, Distributed by Praeger Publishers, 1971]
The reason why this book came into my notice was because it was kind of old. The previous book I looked at was from 1991 and like this one is from 1971. So I just wanted to look for myself what differences and similarities are there in these 2 books. And it was for sure that the 2^nd book looked way much older to the 1^st one I found. And like it talks about the Greek drama and shows the illustration of it, which I thought was very unique and interesting.

Finally, I decided to do what I do best. And that was search in World Wide Web. To be honest with you, I still prefer using the World Wide Web for my research because somehow I’ve just been too used to it. But like as I was doing this assignment I kind of got used to the different databases but still I guess it will take time since I’ve never been exposed to this type of privilege before. And like hopefully now that I have it for another 4 years I will try to use it as frequently as I can so that I become familiar with it. So I looked up my search terms on www.google.com and www.yahoo.com. In google I tried manipulating the words around but at the end I ended up using the term ancient greek theater and got 1,540,000 results. I was really overwhelmed by the results I got. But when I searched the same term in yahoo I got 5,730,000 results. I scanned through both the results and both the search engine had pretty similar topics. But I don’t understand how come yahoo out numbered google by so much.

Through the World Wide Web I found out about the origin of the Greek drama. I learned about how the Ancient Greeks from the 5th century BC onwards were fascinated by the question of the origins of tragedy and comedy. They were unsure of their exact origins, but Aristotle and a number of other writers proposed theories of how tragedy and comedy developed, and told stories about the people thought to be responsible for their development. Here are some excerpts from Aristotle and other authors which show what the ancient Greeks thought about the origins of tragedy and comedy.

By doing all this, I’ve definitely learned more about my cluster. This quarter I’m taking Ancient theatre so it was really interesting finding out about how it all started and what all are there in Greek theater. And when reading a book for my class, I kind of understand more and visualize where would the actors in the play be standing or like where the chorus will entering and exiting from.

My two topic questions are: How is an ancient Greek play staged? What are the roles of women in Greek theater?

And I guess the other database that I could probably use to search more information from is the Anthropological Literature Online source. I’m sure it will be useful to me because it is a specific database that deals with anthropology.

Research Long Entry 12

1. As I conducted a search in the library catalog I was able to identify both source in the book stacks and as well as source in the reference stacks.
2.
a) A short introduction to the Ancient Greek theater
Ley, Graham
Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1991
LOCATION: Book Stacks
CALL NO: PA3201 .L47 1991
STATUS: ON THE SHELF
b)Ancient Greek music theory : a catalogue raisonné of manuscripts
Mathiesen, Thomas J
München : G. Henle Verlag, c1988
LOCATION: Reference Stacks
CALL NO: ML 113 .I6 v.B11
STATUS: ON THE SHELF
3. a) The first thing I did was click on the haystac catalog and started my search from there. I used all different kinds of search terms.
b) The only problem I faced was finding the right source related to my topic. Like I found many books but I hardly found any in the reference stacks.
c) I learned that I just have to keep trying and manipulating the words here and there until I get a satisfying result.

Research Log entry 11

1. What was discussed today in class?
Answer: Today in class we discussed about the haystac catalog and the call number.
2. Describe the differences between "words" and subject headings".
Answer: I think the difference between words and subject headings is that words is any word or phrase you think of that describes the topic to be searched and as for subject headings it is a specific word or phrase in a standard list of terms used to describe a topic.
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these search strategies?
Answer: The advantage of words is that you can use your own words to describe your topic and the advantage of subject headings is that all information retrieved will be relevant to the subject heading. And the disadvantage of words is that some information you retrieve will contain the keyword but the keyword may not meet what your topic is. And the disadvantage of subject heading is that sometimes there is no subject heading that exactly matches your topic. You may need to do a few searches using different subject headings to cover the topic.

Research Log Entry 10

1. Greek theater is a theatrical tradition that flourished in ancient Greece between c. 600 and c. 200 BC.
2. theater, "theater", "theat*", greek theatre, greek theater, preclassical,classical, hellenistic and ancient greek and theatre/theater.
3.
a. I searched in academic search premier and britanica online and I found a lot of materials.
b. Introduction to Papers from the Conference Dionysius' Ear: Trauma, Tragedy, and Psychoanalytic Listening. By: Orange, Donna M.. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2006, Vol. 16 Issue 4, p413-416, 4p; (AN 23222233)
type of periodical: scholarly journals
Masks in the Accident and Modern Theatre. By: Coldiron, Margaret. New Theatre Quarterly, Nov2002, Vol. 18 Issue 4, p393, 2p; (AN 8683162)
type of periodical: scholarly journals
c. To continue on with my search for more periodical articles I might key in different terms.