RELS 3352 - Hawley - Religious Studies - MRU Library Website at Mount Royal University

Let's begin

Developing your topic

Research proposal assignment

Your research proposal is an important step toward writing your final research essay. Your proposal should:

introduce your expected area of research and topic
identify some kind of research question
show a working bibliography, including both primary and secondary sources

Four steps to choosing your topic and research question

Choose a general topic or area that interests you. (Important!)
Do some preliminary or background research to see how others have discussed that topic.
Ask questions related to your topic. Then ask whether those questions make sense, and if they are worth trying to answer.
Chose one of those questions, refine it, make it clear, focused, and reasonable.

Primary sources

Primary sources usually give us a first-hand account or description of an event witnessed. Primary sources are not just for studying the past; they also help us understand and make meaning from current events.

Common examples of primary sources include: photographs; newspapers; audio recordings (e.g., radio broadcasts); video recordings (e.g., newsreels, films, bystanders); diaries and letters; government or legal records; speeches; autobiographies and memoirs; creative works; and more.

Before you start your search for primary sources check out the following resource.

Guide for primary sources in history.

When you're ready to jump into current and historical news from Canadian and international sources, I recommend the following:

Canadian Newsstream
Access to the full text of Canadian newspapers, newswires, newsmagazines, and television and radio transcripts.
Canadian Business and Current Affairs Complete
Full text for Canadian publications on a broad range of subject areas including CBCA Business, CBCA Education, and CBCA Reference & Current Events.

Access to this resource is funded by Alberta Advanced Education through the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library.
Canadian Reference Centre
Combines Canadian magazines, newspapers, newswires, reference books, biographies, and an image collection to create a collection of regional full text content.
Canadian Periodical Index
Provides the most-requested Canadian reference information available, includes full text articles from general, academic and business magazines.

Secondary sources

Using these sample searches as a starting place, but adapt them for your topic and research needs:

search for other types of resources, not just articles or books
add words that describe your specific topic in more detail
limit the date range if you want newer (or older) sources
add words that define a geography or population (e.g. Alberta, Canadians), or a particular group (e.g., women, men, children, the elderly)

Original search string	Peer-reviewed articles	Books/ebooks
hindu* AND transnationalism	link	link
hindu* AND (diaspora OR migration)	link	link
hindu* AND (hybridity OR identity)	link	link
hindu* AND multicultural*	link	link
hindu* AND generation*	link	link
hindu* AND adaptat* AND (cultur* OR relig*)	link	link
hindu* AND gender	link	link

Atla Religion Database with AtlaSerials
A full-text collection of major religion and theology journals combined with three print indexes published annually by the American Theological Library Association. Coverage is 1949 to date.
SocINDEX with Full Text
SocINDEX offers comprehensive coverage of sociology, encompassing sociology sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study.

Access to this resource is funded by Alberta Advanced Education through the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library.
PsycInfo
Contains citations and summaries of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations in psychology and related disciplines.
Education Research Complete
Offers indexes and abstracts and select full text access for journals and books.
Project MUSE Premium Collection
Provides full text of a growing number of scholarly journals in the arts and humanities.
JSTOR Collection
A large digital library of academic journals, ebooks and primary sources. Includes content across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

You can also check the Resources by Religion: Hinduism section for specific types of resources..

We tend to trust websites published by universities, research groups, governments, and non-profits, but it's always important to evaluate your sources. You can then power up your Google searches with these search tips:

site:gc.ca = limits your searches to Government of Canada web domain (example)
site:edu = limits your searches to most US universities and colleges (example)
allintitle:hindu diaspora canada = words after allintitle: must appear in the title of the page (example)
allintext:hinduism practice canada = words after allintext: must appear in the page text (example)

Evaluating your sources

So you plan to use sources you found on the web?

There are plenty of primary and secondary sources available online, but your job is to separate the good from bad. The CRAAP test helps us check the quality of our sources. This acronym is a reminder of some key questions to ask about your source:

Currency	How current is the information you're looking at?
Relevancy	Does the information address your research needs? Does it stay on topic?
Authority	Is the author an expert? Do they know what they're talking about? How much can you trust the author/publisher responsible for the website?
Accuracy	Is the information accurate, and in agreement with other reputable sources? Can you find the same facts elsewhere?
Purpose	What is the website's purpose? Is it trying to inform or educate? Or maybe to entertain you or sell you something?

These resources might help you understand what to ask when evaluating the credibility of a source.

Evaluating Sources: Where to Begin - Online Writing Lab, Purdue University
A quick breakdown of how sources are often separated. Once you recognize the differences in sources, it becomes easier to locate exactly what you need and evaluate whether the sources you find seem credible.

Citing using Chicago-style

Librarian

Richard Hayman

Contact:

Email: rhayman@mtroyal.ca
Phone: 403.440.8518
Office: EL4441K