HO 296-SS: Honors Thesis-Capstone Prep

Use these library research guides to hone your research and writing skills.

The Sage Research Methods database is a great set of tools that helps you explore the topic of research itself! Using Sage Research, you can:

• Search for scholarly articles on research methods related to specific disciplines
• Explore a research methods map to learn more about what works best for you
• Evaluate which statistical method is best for synthesizing your research data
• View or create reading lists of books on topics related to research methods
• Listen to podcasts by social sciences researchers & learn how they handle issues related to research methodology

There are several ways you can save your research work as you move through your project:

• Create an account within a database (JSTOR, Academic Search Complete, Credo, etc.) and save articles to folders.
• Send individual articles to yourself, print them, save to a thumb drive or upload to Google Drive using the database widgets provided. These will look slightly different depending on the database, and are typically found when you open up individual articles. You can also download a PDF if it's available. Here's what the widgets look like in the Ebsco databases: 

• Create an account in Zotero or NoodleTools. With these tools you can:
  • save articles 
  • keep lists of search terms, book titles and other resource types
  • use templates to create your paper and/or bibliography
  • use tools to create documents for all major styles/formats (MLA, APA, Chicago Style, etc.)
• Create an account within MLA Style Center or Academic Writer (APA Style).
  • save articles
  • view tutorials on various topics
  • use templates to create your paper and/or bibliography using MLA/APA style.
  • use Chicago Style Online for Chicago Style format.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a fact of life and has been for quite some time. It's only recently that we have seen it incorporated into apps for a mainstream audience. If you've ever used Siri or Alexa or if you've used a chatbot, you've used AI! Below are some FAQs that will help you get a better understanding of how you might use it.

Always ask your instructor about their policy on using AI for class assignments.

Q:What is AI?
A: AI is the use of computers to imitate the behavioral aspects of human reasoning and learning.

Q:What is ChatGPT?
A: ChatGPT is a chatbot and virtual assistant that uses a Large Language Model to sort and organize data and language into a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language. It relies on input (prompts) from users and training on data and language to mimic human language patterns and generate responses.

Q: What is a Large Language Model?
A: A Large Language Model is a computation structure that is capable of generating language or other natural (everyday) language processing tasks. It is "trained" on massive amounts of data that it can use to predict language patterns in speech and text.

Q: Can I use ChatGPT as a search tool?
A: ChatGPT can generate responses to prompts, but it cannot search the web by itself. It is trained on a specific set of resources within a specific time frame and cannot "find" new resources that it doesn't "know" about. Its purpose is to put words/concepts/data together in specific ways based upon the likelihood that one word will follow another. It's like an autocorrect feature that can sort and organize complete sentences instead of letters! It cannot sort fact from fiction or find a reliable source, and so its responses to prompts may not be accurate. 
Note: ChatGPT is now testing SearchGPT, which has web search capability - but it is only in prototype as of July 2024.

Sources:
Roumeliotis, K.I. & Tselikas, N.D. (2023). "ChatGPT and open-AI models: A preliminary review." Future Internet,15(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/fi15060192
Russell, S.J. & Norvig, P. (2021). Artificial intelligence: A modern approach (4th ed.). Hoboken: Pearson.