Latin American Studies 200: Issues in Latin American Studies

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Latin American Studies 200Issues in Latin
American Studies

• Spring 2008
• Library Instruction Session
• Kristin Partlo

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Topics This Term

• Tourism in Mexico. Idea of tourism changing over
  time. Government role.
• Telenovellas. Specific country? OR Film
• Textiles as form of expression and other art
  forms (songs, etc.). Sentiments about los
  desaparacidos
• Latin American cities. Culture and structure of
  the city and the role of the church. Social
  equality and social rights are they promoted or
  repressed by the church and by the government?
• Street children in Guatemala. 2 Orgs that
  provide shelter and do research, promotion.
  Process of exiting the streets. Where are the
  girls?
• Social aftermath of civil wars and movements. OR
  Role of language.
• Immigration, possibly in Mexico, to the U.S. and
  problems of immigration into other Latin American
  countries
• Financial crisis of the 1980s. Look at a couple
  of countries responses, perhaps.
• Urban movement, including social inequalities and
  other aspects.
• Indigenous languages in Guatemala.

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Your Questions

• Sources from libraries beyond Carleton

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Literature Review

• Reviewing what has been written on a topic in
  order to
• Familiarize yourself with the major research
  questions asked by others in a field
• Develop general explanations
• Identify potential relationships between concepts
  
• Develop a researchable hypothesis
• Learn how others have measured and defined key
  concepts

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Literature Review cont.

• Identify literature and data sources used by
  other researchers
• Discover how your research project is related to
  other research
• Identify alternative research designs
• Seek theories that support or develop your
  hypothesis
• Find competing or alternative hypotheses

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Myths of Literature Reviews

• All the writing happens at the end of the
  process.
• Everything is on the Web.
• One can make one trip to the library to gather
  all sources at once.
• If a source is not at Carleton, I cant use it.
• The best way to find sources is to search for my
  topic in databases.

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More Myths

• Only sources on my exact topic are relevant for
  my review.
• The literature review can be left until the end
  of term when I can focus on it.
• I have to read everything I review, so I dont
  want to use books.

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The Chicken and Egg Problem of Writing a
Literature Review

• Finding a topic that successfully matches your
  particular interest with the existing literature
  in a manageable scope
• I.e., how much can you actually get done in a
  matter of weeks
• Your interests are a moving target
• You dont have existing, deep familiarity with
  the existing literature and have to learn as you
  go.

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Where to begin?

• Look through syllabus
• What looks interesting?
• Are there connections with other classes?
• Browse a Latin American Studies journal
• Browse a subject encyclopedia

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Where to Look?

• Encyclopedias
• for ideas for topics, definitions of terms,
  synthesis, ways of framing questions, and
  bibliographies
• The Catalog for books
• for their own content
• for bibliographies that lead to other books,
  articles, documents
• Databases for journal articles
• articles for content
• bibliographies that lead to other articles,
  books, documents
• Bibliographies of things youve already found
• Mining citations is a great way to find more
  sources
• Web sites of research organizations

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Databases

• Specific to Latin American Studies
• HLAC
• An ongoing bibliography of Latin American
  scholarship
• HAPI
• In index to 500 journals that address Latin
  America
• Social Sciences Databases
• Historical Abstracts
• Multidisciplinary, international scope
• Includes journal articles, book reviews, papers,
  etc.
• Sociological Abstracts
• Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, more
• Includes journal articles, book reviews, papers,
  etc.
• PAIS
• International focus, covers scholarly literature
  and government and international documents

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More Databases

• General Multidisciplinary
• ProQuest
• Very large, covers virtually all disciplines
• Scholarly and non-scholarly publications
• JSTOR
• Can easily limit to specific disciplinary
  journals
• Only a select number of (core) journals included
• All full-text
• Project Muse
• Similar to JSTOR but with newest editions

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Research within a Discipline

• Librarys subject guides on web site
• Encyclopedias
• Databases
• Hints for searching the catalog
• Contact me with questions