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Finding resources

You can browse the internet to get some ideas of what research topics are out there. More importantly, once you decide on your research topic, the internet will be a very important resource for you. If you haven't used the internet in English before, now is a good time to start.

Be careful, though-- the internet can really suck you in! It is easy to waste a lot of time if you are not careful. Sometimes students believe that they are working very hard because they are spending a lot of time online. (Yet, in fact, they might not have accomplished anything...)

The trick is to use your time wisely! I hope these sites will help you do that.

 

To get an idea for a topic....

http://www.jalt.org/
This is an important site. It is all about language learning and teaching in Japan. Go to links to resources. Each resource has a short, helpful description.

http://www.yahoo.com/
Yahoo is a good place to start because you don't get too lost.
Go to social science and then to linguistics and human languages
. Look at all the interesting topics! WOW!

http://pw1.netcom.com/~rlederer/
This is an interesting list of various language sites, from fun things to dictionaries to linguistics. There are a lot of good links here.

To locate books...

Books are still the basis of research! When you have found an interesting general topic, you will need to find books. Look for introductory books in Japanese, if possible. To do a search, try various key words or phrases. Which ones give the best results?

http://amazon.com
http://amazon.co.jp
Use these to search for books, titles, and authors, or just to browse. The search engine is very easy to use.

http://webcat.nii.ac.jp/
This is a database of university libraries in Japan. Use it to locate books in Japanese or in English. (However, it is not very interactive or intuitive, so try variations of your key word or phrase.)

  • Click on the books button.
  • Try your key words in English and in Japanese.
  • Click on each book to find out which libraries own it. If HGU library doesn't own it, the library can try to borrow the book from other university libraries. (You pay for postage.)
To locate academic articles...

Eventually, you might need journal articles.
(1) Ask me. I have quite a few journals in my office.
(2) Use WEBCAT to see which university libraries own this journal.
(3) Search the internet for online articles. This is not easy. I will help you!

Good luck!

It's fun to search for information.
But eventually, you have to start reading and
summarizing your resources.
For help on that, please go to "How to write your senior paper".

 

 

 

Last revised: April 4, 2004