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By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student
Well Modulus 1 and 2 are under my belt for the course Skill Building: Nuts and Bolts of Reporting Research and I am happy to say they covered two of my favorite topics: citations and guides. You are probably wondering what the big deal is?! We all know how important citations are but guides, what do you mean? If you have never made a research guide then you are in for a treat.
Guides are a wonderful resource for you as a researcher. I learned that many years ago, and continue to create them for places I go to do research. However, I have discovered that many researchers do not do this and, to be honest, I think research would be a lot easier for them if they did.
You can create a guide for a specific place (town, county, state, and country), a repository, type of publication, or really anything else that you reference or use frequently in your research. As a living document (i.e. one that is designed to grow and change over time) you can start small and build on your experiences making sure all the pertinent information you need to be successful is listed there.
I have several types of guides on my computer as well as in my filing cabinet. My computer documents contain ideas, website information, checklists I have created, resources that I keep track of, etc. In the cabinet I keep facility/tourist brochures, handouts that I get while on site, or other non-electronic information that I collect for that guide.
Needless to say I picked up a couple more ideas for my guides from this module. I know you will like it too! On to the next lesson.
See you online!
