Mike Roche - Blog Post 4

I would say the resources for this class are definitely complementing the research I have to do for my classes. For example, for a research paper in my “New Woman Fiction” class, I needed to find biographical information about an obscure Australian writer named George Egerton. Had I not been familiar with the in’s and out’s of conducting research with Summon's advanced search feature, I would not have found the entry for her in the Gale Dictionary of Literary Biography; nor would I have been able to have figured out how to gain access to the Literature Research Center.

One topic I think I would have benefited from learning about earlier in the semester is bibliographic management tools. Like Michelle, I have benefited from using a citation manager, though not Endnote. Prior to last week’s module, I had no idea that tools like that were available for use to students. Using an MLA handbook was my somewhat dated way of making sure I was making proper citations. Zotero seems perfect for my research needs, and has already started to make source citation considerably easier for me. Had I known about this tool earlier in the semester, I would have been able cite more quickly and easily in the (admittedly few) papers I’ve already had to turn in.