Skills Focus
- How to craft good search terms
- Determine which topics may be better researched using the databases vs. the internet
- Evaluate sources for credibility and relevance
- Accurately enter citation information into Noodle Tools; create citations and draft annotations in Noodle Tools; then correctly export them to Google Docs for submission
Databases
- Gale U.S. History in Context This link opens in a new windowInformation on people, places, events, and topics in U.S. History
- Gale eBooks This link opens in a new windowCollection of encyclopedias and reference materials (ebooks)
- Gale Literary Sources This link opens in a new windowOne cross-searchable database for the following individual literary databases: Literature Resource Center, Twayne's Author's Online, Literature Criticism Online (Contemporary Literary Criticism, Short Story Criticism)
- Gale in Context This link opens in a new windowInformation on a broad range of topics, people, places, and events
Helpful Website Articles
- The Great Gatsby and the American DreamAn article from The Guardian
- The Great Gatsby DelusionAn article from The Telegraph
- The Road to West EggVanity Fair Article
Areas of Focus
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Consumerism / advertising in the 1920s
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Prohibition
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Flappers / 19th Amendment / Margaret Sanger and birth control
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The Roaring Twenties / the economy
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Pop culture, including music, dance, art, literature, radio, movies, etc.
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The Fitzgeralds (Scott and Zelda)
Search Tips
CREATING A SEARCH STATEMENT The most difficult part of conducting a good search is usually not figuring out which buttons to push, but rather in figuring out which terms to use and how to combine them to find sources that are “on topic.” This requires a strategy that will optimize the number of relevant titles that you can find. One component of this strategy is the search statement. A search statement is a query that identifies the information you are searching for in a bibliographic database in a way that can be utilized by the databases search engine for retrieval of records. Many times a topic can be described in many different ways.
As there are over 500,000 words in the English language, there are undoubtedly numerous words that could be used to describe the topic. Where to begin?
• Break your search (AKA search) statement/question into concepts and keywords.
• Note other possible natural vocabulary keywords and applicable concept terms while doing background research.
• Identify synonyms of those keywords.
• Create concepts of 1-3 words.
*Borrowed from: http://www.library.illinois.edu/bix/pdf/genguide/searchtips.pdf
Books
The Jazz Age by Call Number: 9736.91 JAZISBN: 0783555091Publication Date: 1999-09-01
Bootleg by Call Number: 363.4 BLUISBN: 9781596434493Publication Date: 2011-05-24
Understanding the Great Gatsby by Call Number: 813.52 FITISBN: 0313300976Publication Date: 1998-10-30
Class Conflict in F. Scott Fitzgerald's the Great Gatsby by ISBN: 0737738995Publication Date: 2007-12-13
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