GEO 329: Geography of the United States and Canada

This web guide has been created specifically for your class and the assignments you will be given this term.

Below, you will find information that can help you as you prepare for your group presentation and your research paper.

If you are having trouble using these resources you can contact me for help as well as the reference desk.  My contact info is below.  To contact the reference desk click here.

Presentation help

• Presentation preparation tips
• Finding maps and statistics about your region
• Finding photos

• Finding books
• Tips for using research databases
• Suggested research databases
• You have a list of articles, what next?
• Using the web
  
• Style guides - APA or MLA

• Andrea Wirth
• Office Hours:
  . Please contact me for an appointment.
• Contact Info:
  AOL IM: VLibAndrea
  

• Cub Kahn
• Office Hours:
  Cordley 1006. Tue 11am-12:30pm, Wed 10:30am-12:00

You can find a lot of advice online regarding presentation development, particularly if you are using PowerPoint.  A select few of those are listed below, but it is not a comprehensive list.

Take what you need from each of the  resources, but do not feel like you have to address every suggestion - some suggestions will not apply to this class presentation. Depending on your comfort with PowerPoint or other tools, public speaking, graphic layout (for pictures and maps), group work, etc, bits of advice useful to your classmates may not be as useful to you.

*Tip:  Preparation is key.  Particularly since this is a group presentation, you will want to ensure that your talk flows well during transitions between speakers.

From the journal Computational Biology available from Public Library of Science: Ten Simple Rules for Making Good Oral Presentations
(Advice that goes beyond one discipline and is well written)

From Microsoft: Tips for Delivering Amazing Presentations
(Business perspective, includes powerpoint advice)

From the journal Proofs:  Avoiding PowerPoint Poison . (Login with OSU ID info if accessing this article from off campus)
(Focus is on using PowerPoint effectively, Business perspective)

From a Computer Science Professor at Berkeley (Jonathan Shewchuk): Giving an Academic Talk
(Computer science perspective, but much of the advice applies to any presentation)

Additional help, places to practice and do group work

From the library: You can reserve study rooms (not enhanced, bring or check out a laptop) at the library Circulation desk.  Be sure and ask for one that's big enough to hold your group.

Need additional help learning PowerPoint or need a place to practice?  Contact Student Multimedia Services.

Online interactive tools for statistics and map-making

These tools typically allow you to print or save maps. However, the file type is not always easy to work with to re-size for inclusion in presentations and papers.  If you are able to save your map as an image or get a decent screen shot, you can import it into PowerPoint or your paper and edit it (sizing, cropping).

Canada

Statistics Canada

The Canadian counterpart to the US Census Bureau.  Includes mapping tools and statistical reports about Canada.  Also provides a catalogue of reports about Canada.

United States

US Census

The US Census Bureau can provide you with a lot of background information on your region. Although organized by state (and county, metro region, etc) you will find that some of the mapping and data tools allow you to zoom in on a section of the country.

National Atlas

Make your own map or choose from a few pre-made maps by broad subject.  Focus is on the "patterns, conditions, and trends of American life".  Also includes Natural Hazards information under the "Climate" and "Geology" layers.

National Map

Similar to the National Atlas but with more focus on natural resources and geospatial data.

What if you don't want to make your own map?

Digitized maps are available from the Perry Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas.

Books and scanning in Valley Library

You can also use the abundant collection of atlases that the Valley Library owns.  Many of these are located on the 3^rd floor across the hall from the Archives reference desk.  You cannot check these out unless you have received special permission from a librarian.  Please contact me if you need to check one out for a very limited time.

There are black and white scanners on the 2^nd floor of the library in the copy room.  You can use these to copy an image for your presentation.  Be sure and get all the citation information you need while you have the atlas in your hands.

There are lots of resources on the free web to find photos.  As with other material you use in your presentation you want to be sure to give credit to the source of the photo.

*Tip: Image searching is tricky.  Be sure you are finding images that truly represent your region.

• Think about where the picture is coming from (who took it?, is it well described?)
• Are you finding details that represent what you have read about the region?
• If a photo is from a collection, you may want to browse for a moment to see if the collection seems to represent the place well

Places to search:

Google images

Use advanced search to narrow your search to a specific domain (i.e. ".gov"), choose file types, or set filtering preferences.

Example using Google Images: Google "Santa Fe Art" search.

Flickr Creative Commons

Search the "average person's" photos on this online photo sharing site.

This is a great site for someone with patience. The search options are not as abundant as they are in Google and it's easy to wander out of the "Creative Commons" section.

Example using Flickr's Creative Commons:  Flickr search for "Santa Fe Art".

Government photo sources

US Government Photos and Multimedia - From USA.gov.  Browse to a particular collection (like National Parks, or National Archives) or search through the collections in the search box on the right.

Images Canada - Combined effort of libraries, archives, museums, and universities in Canada.  A good place to find photos but the search feature can be slow.

The main part of your research paper must address the question: "In what significant ways are a) the contemporary population distribution within the region and b) the contemporary economy of the region influenced by the physical geography of the region?" (from class research paper assignment)

So there are at least two things to tackle here. You need to know where to find information that will help you answer the questions and how to use research tools that will help you get the information.

• See above for maps and statistics tools online
• Books
  
• Research Databases

You have several choices when it comes to accessing books and other printed materials (theses, dissertations, government publications).

From the library's homepage, it's easiest to start with our local holdings, but if you don't find what you need, remember you have access to Summit (search and request directly from 36+ regional research libraries).

OSU Library catalog

Summit Catalog

If you need a book that you can't access through the Valley Library or the Summit catalog, you can check Worldcat and place an interlibrary loan request for it.

Need a brief reminder on how to find books using the OSU Libraries catalog and Summit?  Click "read more" to continue...

• Read More...

Unfortunately, as you may have already discovered, research databases are each a little different.

As with library catalogs, most databases have similar features.

For example, some common features include:

• Choosing whether to search through several fields at once (often the default) or choose just one field (such as author or title fields)
• Using quotes ("") to make phrases -  "global commons", "land management"
• Using AND will combine words and phrases (all need to be present in the document for it to be retrieved) - "global commons" AND fisheries
• Using OR to broaden your search -- agriculture OR farming
• Using an asterisk (*) to truncate words - fish* allows searching for fishing, fisheries, fisherman, fishery, fishes, fishy
  

Some databases will be a little different, luckily most have tips on searching that you can get to from the search interface - use them.

Note:  If you are accessing the databases from off campus, you will need to login with your name and university ID number.

*The links below take you to our (long) list of databases - be sure to choose the one you're looking for.

Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier provides full text for nearly 4,600 scholarly publications, including full text for more than 3,500 peer-reviewed journals. Coverage spans virtually every area of academic study and offers information dating as far back as 1975. This database is updated daily on EBSCOhost. Full-text and abstract/index.
1975-present

Hint: In this database, you can limit to scholarly articles by choosing the "Academic" tab at the top of your search results list or by checking the "Scholarly Journals" box before starting your search.

Geobase
Index to worldwide literature on geology, geography and ecology. Index only.

1980-present

Hint: You can limit your search to "human geography" or "physical geography" easily by using the dropdown list in the "subject category" field.

Web of Science
The Web of Science accesses a multidisciplinary (social sciences and physical and biological sciences) database of bibliographic information gathered from thousands of scholarly journals.Science Citation Index 1996-present
Social Science Citation Index 1999-present

Hint: Use the citation features in an article record to 

• find more articles by looking at the cited references list
• see if this article has been cited by others and follow those leads

You have probably discovered by now that only some of the research databases actually provide you with complete articles (aka full text databases).  Many, however, are finding aids and provide indexing and abstracting, but not full text.  Some of the most comprehensive and useful databases are not full text.

The next step, if you are still looking for the actual article, is to determine if the library owns the journal.

Using the citation information for the article, search for the title of the journal (not the title of the article) in the OSU Libraries catalog.

For example, if I had the following information, obtained through Academic Search Premier,

Learning to make pottery in the prehispanic American Southwest

Author: Crown, Patricia L.

Source: Journal of Anthropological Research; Winter2001, Vol. 57 Issue 4, p451, 19p, 3 charts, 5bw

I would search the catalog for the title of the journal (listed as "source" here) and determine if we owned volume 57, issue number 4.  Both print and electronic copies of journals are listed in the catalog record.

If OSU Libraries does not own the journal you need access to, you can request articles through Interlibrary Loan.

Hint: Interlibrary loan (ILL) can be fast or slow - it depends on which library will supply the article.  Start your research early if you plan to use the service.

Learn more about interlibrary loan here .

If you plan on searching Google, or another search engine to access information on the web, you will want to be sure and know how to evaluate what you are finding.

*For this class, Wikipedia, is not allowed.

Internet sources

As we all know, anyone can contribute to the web. Searching the free web is easy but making sense of your search results in an efficient way is another story.  Why bother with the web if there is so much extra clutter to weed through?

A few reasons to use the web are to find background information, news sources, government documents and resources (such as the mapping tools described above), and more.

One thing that makes the free web different from all the other sources discussed here - there truly is no established filtering mechanism (no scholar selected the sites, no library purchased the materials, no government agency takes responsibility for the content).  It is entirely up to you to evaluate what you find.  Ask me if you need a refresher on evaluating websites (or review Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages from Cornell).

Citing your sources appropriately is an important part of writing a term paper.  Early in the assignment, you should choose a citation style and be consistent in its application to your paper.  Remember, in this course, your instructor requires that you use MLA or APA formatting for in-text citations and your bibliography.

Here are some links that can help you use the style guide of choice. However, your best bet is to use the complete print version of either guide.  These are available in the library.

APA (American Psychological Association)
Book: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
Call number: BF 76.7 .P83 2001 (in reference collection)

Online: APA Documentation from U Wisconsin
OR
Look for the APA Formatting and Style Guide under the "Research and Citation" section from The OWL at Purdue

MLA (Modern Language Association)
Book: MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
Call number: LB2369 .G53 2003 (in reference collection)

Online: MLA Documentation from U Wisconsin
OR
Look for the "MLA Formatting and Style Guide" under the "Research and Citation" section from The OWL at Purdue

Additional Help

Using online sources 
Having trouble citing online resources?  Check out Online: a reference guide to using internet sources by Bedford/St. Martin's.

Overview of Citing (why, when, etc)
For more information about citing your sources, check out the citing sources section of the library's research tutorial.