Why use a research guide?
This research guide has been developed by BYU Librarians to save you time and help you produce a better research paper. It will inform you of the best print and electronic resources for your topic. If you need assistance at any point, please ask for help at the Humanities Reference Desk, level 5.

* If you are not affiliated with BYU, you may not have full access to some of the electronic resources discussed.
 

A.  Getting Started

1. Select Your Topic
2. Identify Terminology
3. Locate Background Information
4. Focus Your Topic and Form an Issue Question
5. Organize Your Topic into Concepts

B. Finding Research Materials

1. Books
2. Articles
3. Additional Resources
4. Internet Resources

C. Evaluating and Selecting Resources

D. Preparing Your Paper and Citing Resources


A. Getting Started

1. Select Your Topic
Select a topic you wish to research. If you find too many materials on the topic to cover it adequately, narrow it to a subtopic or take a specialized approach. If you find too few materials, consider widening your focus (see step #4). If you're interested in ASL, there is a separate ASL Research Guide you can consult.

2. Identify Terminology
When researching a topic, it is important to use the correct terms. Look up your topic in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). These "red books" are at the Humanities Reference Desk and provide you with appropriate subject headings and related terms in various subjects. Linguistics, Applied linguistics, Language and languages, Bilingualism, Semiotics, English language, Spanish language, German language, etc., for example, are all legitimate search terms that can be subdivided even further. As an example of such subdivision, the L.C. subject term for TESL is English language--Study and teaching--Foreign speakers. You can use the individual subject elements in a keyword search.

Begin to make a list of terms and names that describe or relate to your topic.

3. Locate Background Information
The following are a few suggested linguistic reference sources. Look for more materials in the same P call number areas in Humanities Reference (and in the regular shelving) on Level 5.
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias:

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
(Hum Ref P 29 .C64 1997)

The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics
(10 vols.: Hum Ref P 29 .E48 1994)

The Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 2nd ed.
The second edition of this linguistic encyclopedia can be searched by keyword or browsed alphabetically for articles. An extensive bibliography is included. Viewing requires download of the ebrary reader.

Lexicon of Linguistics
Searchable online lexicon of linguistic terminology from Utrecht University.

The Oxford English Dictionary
(20 vols.: Hum Ref PE 1625 .O87 1989)

Also available as OED Online.

Directories of Language Families:

Classification and Index of the World's Languages
(Hum Ref P 203 .V6)

A. Dalby, Dictionary of Languages
(Hum Ref P 29 .D35x 1998)

4. Focus Your Topic and Form an Issue Question
Once you have a general idea of the issues, names, and subdivisions of your subject, try to narrow the scope and form an "issue question" to be researched.

5. Organize Your Topic into Concepts
Take the terms that best describe your topic and organize them into concepts, as illustrated in the concept box below:
 

concept 1
concept 2
concept 3
ESL
or
TESL
or
TESOL
teach$
or
educat$
United States
or
U.S.A.

B. Finding Research Materials

1.  BOOKS

Look for books in the online Library Catalog.  When searching the catalog:
* Use the terms from your concept box as keywords, and link them with AND or NOT.
* Truncate terms that may have variants, with $ (for multiple characters) or ? (for single character).
* If using more than one term, nest the terms using parentheses.

The terms in the concept box above would be nested as follows:
(ESL or TESL or TESOL) and (teach$ or educat$) and (United States or U.S.A.)

Note the difference between subject and keyword searches!
Subject searches must be exact subject headings from the LCSH as described above. Keyword searches are more flexible and come from any field in the record (title, author, subject heading, notes, publisher, etc.) You may want to start with keywords, look at the subject headings found in the records, and then click on the subject heading link to get a more specific group of materials with that subject heading. 
2. JOURNAL ARTICLES
Here's a list of general linguistics and TESOL journals in the Harold B. Lee Library.
Others can be found in specific language families.
To locate various subject articles in the journals, use the indexes below:

A. Linguistic Indexes
These periodical indexes give you references to articles from journals, magazines, conferences, and books in the areas of Linguistics, ASL and TESL. The main indexes are:

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
(LLBA also available at Hum Ref P 1 .L26x Index Table )
MLA International Bibliography
(MLA also available at Hum Ref PB 41 .X1 M6 Index Table)
ERIC indexes with emphasis on language teaching.

B. General Periodical Indexes
There are other multidisciplinary or general-interest indexes available, many of them offering current and full-text articles.

C. Indexes in other subjects
If your topic extends to other specific subjects, check periodical indexes in those areas, such as political science, education, history, psychology, communications, etc.

* Remember to look up the journal title in the Library Catalog (by periodical title) to get the call number!

3. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
4. INTERNET RESOURCES
For linguistics resources on the web, you can begin from a selection of basic links on the HBLL Linguistics webpage.
This will guide you further to such sites as the BYU Linguistics Department website, to the Summer Institute of Linguistics' Ethnologue, a catalogue of over 6,700 languages, and to multilingual dictionaries.

Also don't forget the Oxford English Dictionary (OED Online).


C. Evaluating and Selecting Resources

As you sift through the materials found, keep the following criteria in mind:

Type of Information:  Is the material a scholarly or a popular publication? Are there footnotes, bibliographies, and proper documentation of the material presented? If it is a journal, is it peer reviewed?

Authorship: Who is the author, where is he/she from, what organizations is he/she associated with, what other types of materials has he/she written? What are their perspectives and biases?


D. Preparing your Paper and Citing Resources

For citations, the following style manuals can be found at various reference desks:
Gibaldi, Joseph.
MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing.
2nd ed. New York : Modern Language Association of America, 1998.
HumRef Desk PN 147 .G444 1998

Turabian, Kate L.
A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.
6th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
HumRef Desk LB 2369 .T8 1996

Troyka, Lynn Quitman.
Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers.
4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall, c1996.
HumRef Desk PE 1408 .T696 1996

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
4th ed. Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, 1994.
HumRef Desk BF 76.7 .P82 1994

The Chicago Manual of Style.
14th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
HumRef Desk Z 253 .U69 1993



If you have additional questions, please ask at the Social Sciences Reference Desk on Level 1, the Humanities Reference Desk on level 5, or at the office of the subject specialist Richard Hacken in HBLL 5523 (His electronic address is hacken@byu.edu).