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Using the topic of Matt Groening and the Simpsons, let's find information that provides academic viewpoints related to the cultural significance of this artist and his work.
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1. Start with the OPAC, the Library catalog, to see what books are available.
Because this database is relatively small, try a key word search to see the broadest range of what's available.
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You'll get 16 items, a reasonable number to look through. Look carefully at each title.
Some are comics written by Matt Groening, some DVDs. However, there are one or two items that will provide an academic treatment of a subject.
Leaving Springfield :The Simpsons and the Possibilities of Oppositional Culture is around #12 on the list .Click on the link to the full record for this book to find clues about its scope.
Notice that the publisher is Wayne State University. Read the Table of Contents. From chapter titles, you'll easily see that this is likely a scholarly or academic source.
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2. Next, try the databases.
Click on the link to Wilson Web: Art Index.
Enter your search term in the FIND box.
This database is much bigger than the OPAC. A keyword search on the Simpsons will result in more than 800 results.
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Look carefully at the first 20 results.
Some are "false hits" for this topic. That is, they aren't about Matt Groening's Simpsons.
Notice that the titles of the publications.
And, notice that there are links to the full articles in either PDF or text format |
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If you click this title, you'll find an ABSTRACT (summary) which says:
Reading the interplay between text, audience, and institutional context, this article critically examines the distinctiveness of The Simpsons. It explores how the animated series uses textual strategies that are interesting to and challenging for both (postmodern) critical theory and processes of interpretation , including existing critical writing on the program.
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Notice Article #17.
 See the icon for peer reviewed.
From the ABSTRACT you can tell that this article contains a critical or theoretical analysis of the Simpsons.
This is considered a scholarly or academic source.
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3. Just for comparison, let's look at Wilson Omni and see the differences.
You can actually search both Omni and Art Full-Text simultaneously. First click on the link to Database Selection Area and choosing both.
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Why more hits?
Wilson OmniFile covers about 1500 magazines from many disciplines and is a little bigger than Art Full-Text. The Simpsons falls within the area of popular culture, a wider area than art and design. By the way, there will be some overlap because Omni also includes some arts.
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Since there are so many hits, you can limit the search to just the subject field of the record, resulting in around 600 articles. |
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Notice that you can limit the search to only Full Text or Peer Reviewed articles, further reducing the number of articles. Another method of limiting would be to add another term in the second search box, like "Matt Groening".
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Look carefully at the results. Notice the range of articles and the types of magazines.
Newsweek contains a combination of "popular" and "substantive news." Short movie reviews would be considered popular.
Entertainment Weekly is a "professional" publication aimed at industry professionals.
There is also a journal, considered "scholarly."
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4. Compare the results from database with what you find through Google.
Because the web is so enormous, using more terms is wise. Even so, the results are over 1.5 million hits.
Notice that a lot of fan sites come up. Most of these will not be useful for an academic paper.
Wikipedia comes up. Fine for background information, but it's really very superficial. Look at the article and compare it with the scholarly articles that were retrieved through the databases. Nothing in Wikipedia comes close to that level of writing.
The web is good for getting ideas and basic background information. But, for college level research papers, books and journal articles with scholarly writing will be necessary.
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All information is NOT created equal.
"The pursuit of knowledge is less a process of acquisition than one of hurling irrelevant material out the window." - Thomas Washington, Education Week, 7/07 |
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