Water Rites
Research Sample (Humanities)
Plan A - Six Weeks
Step One: Narrowing My Research Topic
I decide to start my search on the library catalog. That allows me to see what our library has, what I can get through SUMMIT, and what I can order through Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad). I start with salish folklore water as a keyword search in the TESC catalog. This brings back results with Inland Salish, plus, the "water" part of the search doesn't add any hits. I probably want Coast Salish stories. I try searching as subject. There's no LC Subject with that name, but I get a helpful link to Coast Salish Indians and it searches for me as a subject. I recognise a book that was recommended in another class, of Lushootseed stories. I click on it, and check out the subjects listed in the record. I choose Coast Salish Indians-Folklore and search SUMMIT with that. I get 7 hits back from SUMMIT, but the first book on the list looks like it might be useful, and it has lots of Subject categories to try. From here I can probably start to find enough leads to come up with a project question, like:
"How do the Coast Salish Indians of the Pacific Northwest relate spiritually to the dominance of Water in their environment?"
I may find that I need to tweak the question as my project proceeds, so it is not carved in stone or anything.