English 669: Bibliography and Methodology
Assignment 2
Dr. Morillo

 Assignment Two: Reading and Evaluating Graduate-level and Professional Abstracts

Research scholars need to know how to find and save abstracts, those quick summaries of academic and professional arguments. Online databases have made this a much faster process. Some of the top journals in both literature and languages and rhetoric and composition publish short abstracts with every essay, and you'll be using those plus the standard database for all collected dissertation abstracts, Dissertation Abstracts International via ProQuest.

You will turn in, on paper, 6 reprinted abstracts (via copy/paste) and written evaluations of the best and worst one. Everything can be single-spaced. Follow all instructions below.

Intsructions:

1) SAVE and PRINT 2 abstracts of artilces in Publications of the Modern Language Association (PMLA)

How to retrieve 2 abstracts from PMLA

• login to the NCSU Library page. Click "Jounral Titles" next to More Research Tools. Search journal title as:  PMLA
• Click first link "Publications of the Modern Language Association of America" for recent electronic holdings
• Click Available from January 2002
• login with secure sever using your unity account (for help doing this click here) it will then take you to mlajournals.org.prox.lib.ncsu and PMLA online
  
• Choose any volumes # from 125 to the most current #127, click the volume then the abstract link for any essay's abstract that interests you
• read some abstracts and save 2 you like best by clicking the abstract link, then copying and pasting the text of the title, citation information, and abstract text  into a word file.
  

2) SAVE and PRINT 2 Abstracts of artilces in Dissertation Abstracts International/ Humanities
How to retrieve 2 abstracts from DAIA

• login to NCSU Library home
• from NCSU Library home page click Databases
• click letter D
• click Dissertations and Theses, Full Text
• put keywords of interest to you for reserach into the search window
• narrow results by subject
  
• click Citation/Abstract
  
• read abstracts of interest, save the full titlesand text for 2 dissertation abstracts copying and pasting the text of the title, citation information, and abstract, into a word file.

3) SAVE and PRINT 1 abstract of an article in College Composition and Communication
How to retrieve abstracts from CCC

• repeat as above but search journal title as College Composition
• Click title link then vols. available online from Feb. 1969 via NCTE
• browse volumes, read and then save abstract (via Show Abstract link), copying and pasting the text of the title, citation information, and abstract, into a word file

4) SAVE and PRINT 1 abstract of an article from any other journal you can find online that publishes abstracts of articles. Not all do, so explore journal titles in your field(s) of interest.

5) Chose whichever one of the 6 reprinted abstracts you think is most effective, and explain why you like that abstract best. Choose one other one you think is worst, and briefly explain what is wrong with it. Write a paragraph for each evalution.

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