RNG 477/577: Agroforestry (Bishaw)

Natural Resources Librarian

Bonnie Avery
Office Hours: By Appointment (please request via email)
Office Location: The Valley Library
Contact Info:

About this Guide

Help with finding evidence based research in for topics related to agroforestry.

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Course Assignment

"Each student is required to prepare a term paper for RNG 477 and RNG 577. The purpose of assigning a term paper is to:(1) give you additional practice in written composition, (2) provide an opportunity for you to explore a narrowly focused agroforestry subject in a more detailed, integrated way than we will be able to do in class, and (3) encourage you to develop scholarship skills as an acquirer and user of information...

"References should follow the AIBS (American Institute of Biological Sciences) style generally used in biological journals. In this style, the authorship and year of cited works is included in the text immediately after the cited material. Citations often take the form "In Africa, people (Johnson and Smith 1978), as well as livestock (Sneed 1989) are important components..." or "Smith (1990), believes that..". When more than one article is cited for an item, they should be listed in chronological order: Example: Tree tenure is important in evaluating the feasibility of agroforestry systems (Edwin 1975; Aacombe 1986; Gaff 1989)...

PAPERS DUE: at end of class period on the first class session at the beginning of Week 9."

Course Instructor

Badege Bishaw
Office:
321 Richardson Hall
Contact:

Instructor's Website

Planning Ahead

You have eight weeks to complete this project. Use the first three to your advantage and start your research early. Here is one approach you might take. Click on Read More for some pointers on how to get started on a successful "literature review."

Your questions are always welcome but in general, the sooner, the better. Contact information is at the end of this page.

During the first week, get to know the resources available to you. If you have not used the OSU Libraries recently, be sure to read this page completely. Plan to take full advantage of the library's resources including:

Use of the OSU Libraries catalog to see what books and reports are available on your topic.
Use of the "Summit" catalog to see what books and reports are available on your topic in other Oregon/Washington university libraries and request them electronically.
Use of the Research Oriented Databases to locate research findings and peer reviewed writings on your topic and,
- Access these articles directly as pdf files if available,
- Or, if only available in paper at OSU, get the information you need to locate the article in the library,
- Or, if unavailable at OSU, request an "interlibrary loan" copy of the article so that you will receive the article from another library.

During the second week, begin with a small research assignment. Find at least two or three articles in research journals on a topic of interest related to this class this process will give you an idea of what problems you may encounter in searching for information on your topic.

Try to have most of your "literature review" done by the end of week 4 or definitely 2 weeks before you plan to write a rough draft of your paper (and DO plan to write a first draft). In this way, if you need to request items via Summit or via interlibrary loan you have allowed time for the request to be processed and the item retrieved and sent to you.

Last Update: December 19, 2011 13:11 | Tagged with: Agroforestry databases rangeland resources Forestry