Page 68 - Computer Basics - Research

ii. When you find a short list of good sources, read through them more thoroughly and examine
them with ______________________________
________________________________________.

IV. Evaluate Your Resources Constantly
A. _______________________________of the author?
B. Reputation of the ______________________________?
C. Type of _________________________________?
D. Date of __________________________________?
E. _______________________________ of documentation?
F. ______________________material?
G. Style and tone of writing? (serious, popular, neutral, inflammatory, etc.)

V. Analyze as You Read
A. What is the ___________________________ saying?
B. What _________________________________ does the author have?
C. What is the quality of the __________________________________________?
D. How does this fit with other sources you’ve read?
E. Identify ___________ __________________________________, with their evidence, as well as how they
fit together.
F. Identify key _________________________________
G. Finding Media (iTunesU)
There are two ways (that I know of) to find scholarly sources on iTunes: from either iTunesU or from
podcasts. iTunesU has lectures from classes at numerous seminaries, and podcasts tend to have sermons
that various churches post to iTunes. Both are available for free download.
NOTE: This instruction sheet assumes that the user has downloaded iTunes from Apple
(http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/) and has launched iTunes.

1. Method I: General Navigation of the iTunesU Site to Browse Schools.
a. From the iTunes Store, select iTunesU to navigate to the iTunes U site
b. From the right side of the screen, select “Universities & Colleges.”
c. At this point, you can see that various schools, including seminaries, have content on iTunesU:
d. On each college site, class lectures, chapel services, and other files are available for download
and free listening/viewing.
2. Method II: Searching for a topic.
a. Enter a simple search statement in the upper-right-hand search field.
b. The search results will then be displayed for various media types: (Albums, iTunesU, Podcasts,
etc.)
c. Click on the item of interest and the “Get” or “Free” button on the far right-hand column of the
media of choice to download. Oftentimes, there is not a lot of detail about the lecture or podcast
on iTunes, so some research is required to assess the value of the source. This should include
searching the University and/or the speaker online to understand the doctrinal position, in
addition to pre-listening (similar to pre-reading) each source.

H. Using Research Websites:
It’s important to ensure the web sources we use in our research are reliable,
scholarly-level sources. Often, students will be very wary about using resources
from a particular perspective or authors when found in print, but on the internet,
they use whatever they can find. The student must bring their critical skills with
them to the process of evaluating online resources. Every web source used in
research should be critically evaluated using several criteria.

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