Some easier ways to access resources

College is hard enough without the tedious job of creating citations. After Googling, “What is a citation!?” at 2:00 AM the morning of the due date, it can seem like a daunting task. But do not fret! To help you finish off the semester strong, we created this short list of tips and tricks to help you access and use sources, so the last thing in your paper is the last worry in your mind.

1) How to find reputable resources
The internet is full of information…and misinformation. Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish between a worthwhile source and misinformation. How do you make the distinction?

The research guides on our website, which contain quick, how-to instructions on various topics, are a great start. We have a specific research guide dedicated to evaluating sources. This guide will help you distinguish between a credible source, and one to avoid. Many of these techniques will work both for your coursework and help you spot misinformation on social media.

2) How do I create a citation
I kept a dog eared MLA citations pamphlet from high school. This booklet was clearly a copy of a copy and was probably 15 years old when I received it in 1999. Citations had to be typed out “by hand.” Nowadays it is much easier to create a citation and all you have to do is copy and paste. Please cite your sources to give credit to other scholars’ work and avoid plagiarism.

(This is real btw.)

Method 1: Use our citation guide

This research guide is for creating citations. There are two main types of citation styles you’ll use during your time at PSC. The first is MLA, which stands for Modern Language Association, and is typically used in humanities courses. The other is APA, which stands for American Psychological Association, and is more common in the social sciences, business, and education. Our guide shows you how to cite in both formats.

Method 2: Generate a citation using OneSearch’s tools

When you search for something in our collection you can create a citation from the Detail Record page. The Detail Record page gives more descriptive information about the book, article, video or whatever it is.

Below is the detail record page for an ebook copy of our next book club pick, The Fifth Season by N. K Jemisin.
On the right hand side of the page you’ll see a list of tools. These tools allow you to save the detail record page a number of ways (but not the actual book). Click cite and you’ll generate a citation in the style your professor would like.

Then simply copy and paste the citation that you would like to use into your Google or Word doc.

Method 3: Use a citation creation tool like the one from Excelsior University OWL

Excelsior University in upstate New York has an Online Writing Lab (OWL get it!?) that has multiple great tools to help you with citations. They walk you through the writing process, talk about why we cite, and help generate citations. Take a look at this video to learn their tools.

Try some of these methods and see if one works better for you. Remember that we are always here to help with any questions on citations, whether that be their formatting, when to do so, or something else!

3) Citation mining

Maybe you’ve found one or two good articles for a research project, but your professor wants you to have more. How frustrating! There is a trick called citation mining to find more sources. Citation mining means taking the citations used in your two “good” articles and seeing if those articles will work for you.

Scholarly articles will have a massive list of citations at the end. It might be called a works cited, or references page and will look like this:

Jona R. Frohlich, et al. “Examining Co-Patterns of Depression and Alcohol Misuse in Emerging Adults Following University Graduation.” Addictive Behaviors Reports, vol. 8, no. 40–45, Dec. 2018, pp. 40–45. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2018.06.002.

The references in your perfect article are a goldmine. Copy and paste interesting titles into OneSearch to see if we have access to them. Here I’ve copy and pasted the second title from the above references into OneSearch:

If we have access to it, then start reading. If not, you can request the article through interlibrary loan, or ILL for short.

Select “article” on the ILL page and copy and paste the information from the citation directly into the Google form. The article will be emailed to you.

Librarians love nothing more than sharing tips and tricks to help you better navigate the research process. The time is quickly approaching when you’ll have big projects, so please reach out at Ask a Librarian with any and all questions. As my dad used to say, “The only dumb question is the one not asked.”

What I wish I had known as a student:

Believe it or not, we were once college students too. We made great friendships, stayed up too late, and ate entirely too much pizza. We didn’t always know what we were doing though, and sometimes we struggled, when we didn’t need to. I wish I had known how many folks on campus were happy to point me in the right direction.

In this month’s blog post of Library HELP!: a monthly blog to help you student, the library crew answers, “What I wish I had known as a student:”

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  Alex: Your interlibrary loan librarian can request items from another library for you. Fill out the online book and article request forms on the Library’s website: https://library.prairiestate.edu/ill.aspx It typically takes about 3 to 5 business days for requests that have been ordered from Illinois Libraries. Out of state requests may take about 7 to 10 days to arrive. Contact ILL Librarian Alex Altan at aaltan@prairiestate.edu with questions.

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  Victoria: Don’t be too bashful to approach your professor. Professors want you to reach out, but many are too fearful. Engage in class, participate in discussions. More than anything, it was the class discussions that clarified ideas and thoughts for me.

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  Bill: Asking for help is not a negative thing. Your professors welcome questions Start your papers and projects early. This will allow time to engage with the material to better understand what you want to say. You don’t write better in a crunch. Take care of your mental health Be cognizant of your friends’ mental health Be open to the new experiences and people you’ll meet along the way

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  CJ: You don’t have to have your “best” subject as your major. If there’s a major you find more interesting and fulfilling, then you can choose that. You’re allowed. Asking your instructors for help or for clarification is going to help a lot. It shows that you are willing to put in the effort to do the work.

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  Valerie: Most college campuses have a lot of resources to help students navigate the experience. If you are struggling emotionally, PSC has personal counseling. We also have a counselor who can help you navigate transferring from PSC once you are done. If you have a disability, the Access and Disability Services Office can assist you with finding the appropriate accommodations. The Military Student Affairs Center is here to help veterans and those currently enlisted navigate their military benefits, as well as support and comradery. TRIO Student Support Services offers holistic support to first-generation, low income, and disabled students to navigate college. Career Services can take you from undecided to working towards a degree and job that you will find fulfilling. Finally, the Student Success Center/Tutoring can offer you some extra assistance in your tougher classes.

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  Kennedy: Everyone has their own pace. Don’t base your speed around everyone else. Not many know what they want to pursue right out the gate. Apply for FASFA and any scholarships you qualify for. Take some fun courses while you do that, you may discover you like something you wouldn’t have experienced otherwise. You don’t need to take all of your classes at once. Traditional schooling is not for everyone: Take online classes and check certificate programs. Online classes are hands off and give you more freedom. Make school work around your schedule. Do you already have a career plan? Certificate programs can get you the skills you need to get started. Fields like IT especially can be done this way and some jobs may even pay for you to go to school and get more knowledge. Just make sure you aren’t stressing yourself out. Go on the educational journey that makes the most sense for you!

All of these images came to you from the PSC Archive. Pay the archive a visit if you would like to see more fun images and learn more about PSC history. Simply contact Alex Altan, College Archivist, at (708) 709-3553 or aaltan@prairiestate.edu.

May the 4th Be With You! — Star Wars Books

Hey! There’s a new Star Wars trailer out! Check it out, along with all the Star Wars books that you can find at the Prairie State College Library.

My favorite is Luke Skywalker can’t read : and other geeky truths.

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Star Wars : Dark empire trilogy
by Veitch, Tom
GN VEI

Six years after the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi, the battle for the galaxy’s freedom rages on. The Empire has been mysteriously reborn under an unknown leader, wielding a new weapon of great power. Princess Leia and Han Solo struggle to hold together the New Republic while the galaxy’s savior, Luke Skywalker, fights an inner battle as he is drawn to the dark side, just as his father…

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Star wars: aftermath
by Wendig, Chuck
FIC WEN

As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance–now a fledgling New Republic–presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but he’s taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.

Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world–war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is–or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.

Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit–to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on Norra and her newfound allies–her technical-genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector–who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.

Horizon Zero Dawn: 12 Books for the Wilderness Wanderer

Guerilla Games newest release, Horizon Zero Dawn, is a RPG that places the protagonist as a hunter and archer who is living in a world has been overrun by robotic technologies. Many years after the fall of civilization, the remaining humans have regressed to primitive tribal societies. The tribe that your character belongs to, The Nora,  is a society of hunter gathers, similar in many ways to Native Americans, who worship nature and shun the “old technologies” left behind by the Old Ones.

If you’ve played Horizon Zero Dawn, or just are really interested in topics like, the customs of tribal societies, earth post-civilization, artificial intelligence, and hunting, then you should check out some of these books at the Prairie State College Library to see if they are for you!

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The world without us
by Alan Weisman
GF75.W4 S5 2007

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity’s impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us.In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.

The World Without Us reveals how, just days after humans disappear, floods in New York’s subways would start eroding the city’s foundations, and how, as the world’s cities crumble, asphalt jungles would give way to real ones. It describes the distinct ways that organic and chemically treated farms would revert to wild, how billions more birds would flourish, and how cockroaches in unheated cities would perish without us. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dali Lama, and paleontologists—who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna like giant sloths that stood taller than mammoths—Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us.

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The hunt for the golden mole : all creatures great and small, and why they matter
by Girling, Richard
QL737.A352 G57 2014

Taking as its narrative engine the hunt for an animal that is legendarily rare, Richard Girling writes an engaging and highly informative history of humankind’s interest in hunting and collecting – what prompts us to do this? what good might come of our need to catalog all the living things of the natural world? Girling, named Environmental Journalist of the Years 2008 and 2009, has here chronicled – through the hunt for the Somali golden mole – the development of the conservation movement, the importance of diversity in the animal kingdom, including humankind within this realm, as well as a hard look at extinction.The Somali mole of the title, first described in print in a text book published in 1964, had as sole evidence of its existence only the fragment of a jaw bone found in an owl pellet, a specimen that seemed to have vanished as Girling began his exploration. Intrigued by the elusiveness of this creature and what the hunt for the facts of its existence might tell us about extinction, he was drawn to the dusty vaults of museums of natural history where the most rare artifacts are stored and catalogued, as he found himself caught up in the need to track it down.Part quest, part travelog, the book that results not only offers an important voice to the scientific debate about extinction and biodiversity it becomes an environmental call to arms.

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Voices of the winds : native American legends
by Edmonds, Margot
E98.F6 E26

This wonderfully colorful and appealing anthology gathers more than 130 Native American legends, many told to the authors by elder storytellers and tribal historians. Traditional stories from 60 native cultures of North America are prefaced by brief head notes. Sources include government documents, periodicals, histories, and field research (some conducted by Clark). Native American cultures value an end to isolation and the individual’s return to family and tribe, but there are some striking analogs to Western myths; one Pima story neatly parallels the Noah’s ark tale. Curiosities include “She-Who-Changeth” for the more common “Changing Woman,” gender-exclusive language (” . . . man first appeared . . . “), and a claim that Navajos live today in prosperity.

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