The purpose of this guide is to help you identify the best resources for research on computer science. Assignment 1- 5 are basic research papers that can take advantage of many published and online sources of information.

	Getting Started
	Reference sources
	Books
	Articles
	Citing Your Sources

Getting Started

A good approach when starting your research is to find one or two reference sources, such as encyclopedias, that can give you a broad overview of the topic. This will help give you some perspective and identify some of the key concepts and subtopics you might be interested in pursuing. Next, find books on the big concepts, for example history of computer science, to get in-depth information on the entire topic. Use journal articles, magazine and newspapers for information on specific issues and subtopics. Web pages from an open Internet search will vary in the type of information provided but are often useful for popular topics and for practical information, such as examples of programming code.

Assignment 1: Historical and Social Context of Computing. Computer science, although a young discipline, already has a rich history. It is also at the heart of many of the exciting and controversial developments in technology that are pushing many of our social boundaries. You can expect to find a great deal of information on this topic -- ranging from well-researched published works to interesting but not necessarily substantiated opinion and speculation pieces.

Assignment 2- 4: Number Representation, Numerical Problems, and Software Development. These topics introduce basic concepts in computer science.

• Reference and book sources are a good place to start because they are likely to provide a more complete overview of these basic subjects.
• Journal articles will tend to focus in on narrow, often complex, aspects of the topic and may assume you already have some expert background knowledge.
• The topics in these assignments are too specialized for most popular magazines and newspapers. Also, finding relevant Web pages on the open Internet for these topics may be somewhat difficult and the type of information may not be particularly useful.

Assignment 5: Artificial Intelligence. This is a very popular topic. As with assignment 1, you can expect to find a great deal of information in a variety of sources. However, its popularity can sometimes make searching difficult. For instance, searching on 'robotics' in the open Internet using Google brings a lot of commercial and popular sites to the top of the list. You may be better off using a reference source to identify terms related to the computer science aspects of robotics to make your searches in other sources more precise.

Search strategy. The terminology your professor uses to describe your assignments also make excellent search terms. Use a combination of his terms in your keyword searches (usually journal database and Internet searches). Make sure to enclose multi-word phrases in "quotes."

His terminology is also useful in identifying good subject headings for searching the library catalog for books. Some of the subject headings you might find useful include:

Reference sources

Subject-specific reference sources introduce you to a subject and provide an overview of the primary topics and issues. They are a good way to become familiar with a new subject area, determine a specific area you may wish to investigate, and identify keywords and related ideas that will help you search for information in other sources.

The following encyclopedias can give you some background on the various subjects in your research assignments:

Encyclopedia of artificial intelligence 
Reference,  Q335 .E53 1992 v.1 - v. 2

Encyclopedia of computer science
Reference, QA76.15 .E48 2000 

Encyclopedia of computers and computer history
Reference, QA76.15 .E53 2001  v.1 and v. 2

Encyclopedia of information systems
Reference; T58.5 .E535 2003 v.1 - v.4

Encyclopedia of associations, 17th ed.
Reference,   AS22 .E53   v.1 and v. 2

Books

Books provide well-rounded, in-depth information about a complete topic. They are the backbone of your research report. Besides all the information they can give you themselves, they can link you to other resources in their bibliographies, endnotes, or footnotes. To search for books, use the library catalog.

• Search by Keyword.  In our library's catalog, you can search by 'keyword' or by 'subject.' Most people start with keyword, which is simply using any words that describe your topic. To be successful, use just 2-3 words on the subject. Because books usually include several topics, you may want to use more general terms. Make sure to put quotes around any two word or longer phrases.

• Search by Subject.  Using subject headings is often the best way to find exactly what you want.

• Browse by Call Number. Once you have found a good starting place, many people like to browse the shelves. This method works pretty well since the library call numbers try to put related books together. Most books on computer science topics start with the call number QA0076. Topics that are more related to telecommunication technology, such as the Internet and networking, are generally found in TK5101-5105. To browse by call number online, click on a promising title and then click on its call number (steps 2 and 3 above).

To search for Books at Cal State San Marcos

Library Catalog
Search our local collection of about 250,000 books.

Safari Books
A collection of over 300 O'Reilley programming and technology books. Many of these can also be found using the regular catalog search. This collection may not be very useful for assignments 1-5 since most of these books are oriented toward practical programming.

Other Options

Circuit (1-3 day delivery)
Search the collections of other San Diego area libraries -- about 3,000,000 books. Find and request books directly online; pick them up at our Library in 1-3 days.

WorldCat (5-10 day delivery)
Search the collections of libraries world-wide -- about 52,000,000 books. Find a book in this database, and fill-out an Interlibrary Loan delivery request. Book will be delivered to Library for pickup.

Once you have a good overview of your research topic, find and read journal articles to develop a deeper understanding of what is known and not known on your topic. Research studies most often take the form of journal articles and investigate a very specific aspect of a particular issue. In computer science, papers in conference proceedings also tend to be an important source of information on recent research. Popular magazine and newspapers are a good topical source for general, business, opinion, and social-impact articles on computing.

Unlike book searches, keyword searching for articles is usually most successful if you use a larger number of words or multi-word phrases. Again, remember to enclose in quotes words you want to appear in a specific order.

To search for Journal and other articles

ACM Digital Library
A collection of over 200,000 journal articles and conference proceedings from the Association of Computing Machinery. Most are available in full text.

ScienceDirect
Provides full text access to over 1,000 journals covering all fields of science. 

Guide to Computing Literature
Bibliographic collection from major publishers in computing with over 1 million entries, some full-text. Includes books, journal articles, conference proceedings, doctoral dissertations, master's theses, and technical reports.

Academic Search Premier
A large, multi-disciplinary database offering full text for nearly 1,850 scholarly journals, including more than 1,250 peer-reviewed titles. Many are available in full-text.

Citing your sources

A citation style is not specified for these assignments. Many people writing science and technology papers prefer to use APA so I have included several links below on how to use this style. If you prefer another style, the library's Citing Sources link has suggestions for other style guides.  

How to use the APA style

Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. 5th ed. Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, 2001. Library Copies (BF76.7 .P83 2001) Using APA Style 5th edition The OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue University provides a myriad of example of works cited and in-text citations. Bookmark this page! apastyle.org Produced by the APA, this site contains a wealth of information about APA citation style. It is not a replacement for owning the Publication Manual, though.