This brief guide was designed to provide you with the tools you need to successfully navigate the auto-ethnology project due at the end of the semester. When you hear the word tools in relation to research, I want you to imagine a box filled with knowledge, skills, and resources.
This is a very simple guide, and although you can certainly use it to proceed independently through the project, I encourage you to consult with one (or more) of your MJC research librarians. Librarians are available to help you generate ideas for investigating your family heritage, learning more about that heritage, finding sources to use in your final project, and providing any support you need to create your final project.
Step One: InvestigateGet a notebook.
Begin by writing down everything you know (or think you know) about your familial origins. Whether you have specific dates and details, or merely rumors to work with...write it down.
Next, ask questions of everyone available to you. Family, if they are available to you. What a wonderful opportunity to call a grandparent or connect with a cousin on social media. Friends of family can also be a good resource.
Sometimes family origins -- family stories -- are shared often and with reverence. Sometimes they aren't, and you will need to dig to uncover information.
As you gather clues about your family background, engage in some informal reading to learn more about your ethnic history. This is still too early in the process to worry about finding your sources. Instead, focus on getting a handle on the "big picture" of your family's ethnic story. Why did "your people" (or the ancestors of "your people") first come to the United States? What did they encounter when they arrived? How did that shape them? Is it still shaping them? How?
The MJC Library has several places where you can find articles for your background reading. Use these sources below to explore your ethnicity.
Why search here? Use this database for preliminary reading as you start your research. You'll learn about your topic by reading authoritative topic overviews on a wide variety of subjects.
What's included: Gale eBooks is comprised of subject, specialized encyclopedias with articles written by scholars and experts.
Why search here? Use OneSearch when you want a simple, one-stop search for discovering and accessing materials that the MJC Library owns.
What's included: Physical books, ebooks, videos, articles, digital media, and more.
Why search here? Use this database to search our collection of thousands of eBooks the MJC Library owns through EBSCOhost. These books can be a great place to start your research.
What's included: Thousands of eBooks covering a wide variety of topics.
Once you get a handle on the story of your family's ethnic background and have done some casual exploration on the immigration story, you are ready to reflect on which elements of that story are the most meaningful to you. The sources you are required to find need to help support the story you want to tell.
In other words: Your story drives your source selection; not the other way around.
For this assignment, you are being asked to find one primary source and one secondary source. What is the difference?
You can use the databases listed below to find primary and secondary sources for your project.
Why search here? Use this database for preliminary reading as you start your research. You'll learn about your topic by reading authoritative topic overviews on a wide variety of subjects.
What's included: Gale eBooks is comprised of subject, specialized encyclopedias with articles written by scholars and experts.
Why search here? This is one of our History Research Center databases, which covers more than 500 years of the African-American experience, African-American History offers a fresh way to explore the full spectrum of African-American history and culture, with tablet/mobile-friendly videos and slideshows, images, biographies of key people, event and topic entries, primary sources, maps and graphs, and timelines.
What's included: eBooks, primary sources, images, videos, and timelines
Why search here? This is one of our History Research Center databases that spans our nation’s history from prehistory to the present day.
What's included: Primary sources, articles, images, timelines, videos, and slideshows
Why search here? When you want to find broad coverage on almost any topic you need to research at MJC, use Gale databases to search over 35 databases simultaneously.
What's included: Gale databases include articles previously published in journals, magazines, newspapers, books, and other media outlets.
Why search here? Search 29 databases at the same time that cover almost any topic you need to research at MJC. This is a good resource to use when you want to delve deeper into your subject.
What's included: EBSCO databases include articles previously published in academic journals, magazines, newspapers, books, and other media outlets.
Why search here? JSTOR is a visually-appealing treasure trove of scholarly content in which you can explore the world's knowledge, cultures, and ideas.
What's included: JSTOR offers more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, images and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
The UCLA Library has a collection of interviews (a.k.a. Oral Histories). Take a look at some below to help you get ideas for how to interview a family member, friend, or other person for this project.
Your professor is giving you a lot of creative freedom in terms of the "deliverable" required at the end of the semester. Yes, their is a brief written narrative in which you will cite your two sources. But there will also be an opportunity to present your findings in a more creative way. You will be discussing this later in the semester, but here are some ideas to start chewing on.
photo collage
Totem pole
Photo Essay
Zine or Digital Flipbook
