Unit 8 Discussion: Online Resources for Research and Writing

[randyturpin]

While viewing Dr. Northcutt's video presentation, take note of some of the online resources that she mentions. Locate these resources (and others that may be helpful for research and writing) on the Internet.

Here in this discussion thread, share with the rest of the class information about useful online articles and/or websites that you have discovered.

[Emily Hall]

From Dr. Northcutt’s video presentation she mentioned many books that would be helpful resources for completing research.  Quality Research Paper, Living in the Spirit a Way of Salvation, Pentecostal Heritage, Five View of Sanctification, and Rise of Pentecostalism are just a few that was discussed.  She also mentioned two websites: www.pctii.org and www.bartleby.com/141.  From searching the first site I found a link to www.sagepub.co.uk/home.nav.  This website contains the Journal of Pentecostal Theology edited by Rickie D. Moore, John Christopher Thomas, and Steven J. Land.  There was also a link to The Pneuma Review, http://www.pneumafoundation.org/intro_pr.jsp.  This journal is published quarterly for Pentecostal and charismatic leaders.  There are many links that can be found through this website including those to Holiness-Pentecostal-Charismatic Archives, different churches, and seminaries which leads to great places to find helpful information.  The second website gives examples and common mistakes made during writing.  It gives useful tips and practices that should be followed.    From my own research online I found the following webistes: http://www.citationmachine.net/, http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html, and  http://www.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citation.htm which is useful for citing sources in the biliography.  Hope this helps everyone for future papers.  

[erichandem]

I went to Lee for four years so, for the past three years (my junior, senior and my first year of Seminary) I have been required to write: exegetical, research, ministry and "theological" papers for professors like: Dr. Jerome Boone, Dr. Simmons, Dr. Daffe, Dr. Martin, Dr. J. Johns and many more from Lee.  The best place for you to go, like Dr. Northcutt said is the Lee University reference center and Pentecostal research centers!!!!Also you will live and die by Kate Turabian's book---required by the Seminary.  
ATLA and Academic Search Premiere (ASP) are vital sources for articles, books and other CREDITABLE online sources...anyone can go to Google and find information but through the Lee Library and ATLA and ASP, you will find creditable and reliable sources!  
Dr. Northcutt mentions many books: Dr. Gause's "Living in the Spirit," Sims' "Pentecostal Heritage," 5 Views, Encountering the Spirit, the Evangel, and Christianity Today.  She tells us to "over do it" but I would caution against that especially if you are like me and have to work hard to write even a decent paper.  With God's help, practice and great professors, I have learned---even the hard way---how to and how to not write a good research/Theological paper!  The most important thing is try to have fun!  Begin with a topic you like or want to learn more about!  Dr. Northcutt also mentions some helpful tools which must be reiterated: thesis, OUTLINE!!!!, topic sentences, thesis statements, apply 'it,' READ THE SYLLABUS/INSTRUCTIONS!!!, brainstorm, BE DISCIPLINED---TIME EQUALS A BETTER GRADE!!!, plan!!!!plan!!!!plan!!!!, use notes and great sources!  
DO NOT think that I am a great writer but give heed to Dr. Northcutt 's advice and use the Library at our advantage.  Finally, use the most obvious resources; our professors, Have them read, edit, give instructions and critique your papers---our professors love and care about our successes!

Erich    

[April Gause]

Thanks Emily for  your post, I was able to go back in and glean some additional information!  These sites are great resources to have in one's research arsenal!

[Lizzierod]

thanks for the great encouragement in writing papers and the great tips in research. I have always had a hard time in writing papers. But I know if I follow some of the tips you gave like planing, ask help from the professors and to write thesis statements I think I will do fine.
 

[erichandem]

Writing a quality research paper takes time!!  I have not had the opportunity to write a "theological" paper until this semester.  However, I have written many psychological research papers during my undergrad.  Many of these papers included the research and statistics of the experiment and many others were just the research portion.  The first point to be stressed is GET TO KNOW THE LEE UNIVERSITY ONLINE DATABASES!!  While conducting research you will spend a great amount of time using the online databases.  The wonderful part of these databases are that you can find topic specific articles, books, and periodicals as well as conducting topic specific searches.  Learning how to use EBSCO Host, ASP-Academic Search Premiere, and the Religious Studies database will help you to go far in the level of research.  Along with these databases it is a good idea to become familiar with the Pentecostal Resource Center and the Reference sections of the library.  

Before ever starting research make sure you know the direction you are going with your paper.  In order to write a paper that makes sense start with an outline.  The outline should begin with your thesis as the header, then from that one sentence try to pull three or four sub-topics.  After you have found your sub-topics begin researching each topic individually.  After research is conducted begin writing and rewriting.  Sometimes rewriting even mean reorganzing.  

Dr. Northcutt mentions one of the required texts for this course, Vyhmeister's Quality Research Papers which is a good book.  She also mentions the PRC and Atla, books by Dr. Gause, Sims, and other profound Christian researchers.  

EM Lacks

[Rhonda Kinches]

I could have spent hours on the www.pctii.org site.  I enjoyed visiting the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and learning more about the history of our denomination, the calendar of events at the center, and the posted journal articles.  I also followed many of the links, one to the Ray Hughes website.    It was a blessing to watch the video of the Russian conference where 10,000 people were saved.    The Wesleyan Research Center was also a great link and provided insight to Wesleyan history and theology.   I’m sure I’ll be referring to this site often.

The volumes of theological publications, articles, and journals available to us both on-line, and in the library is over whelming.  It testifies to the fact that God’s Word is living and relevant from generation to generation.  If it wasn’t, we would have stopped writing about it hundreds of years ago!

As many do I’m sure, I have also found Wikipedia helpful in previous research projects.  I like the dictionary attributes, the encyclopedia attributes and the links located throughout the articles save time.  

[Rhonda Kinches]

Erich,

Your on hands experience to writing papers has yielded great tips for us who are just beginning!  Thank you for sharing!

[Rhonda Kinches]

Emily,
I have already made the sources/bibliography site a favorite.  The color coding on the examples keeps all the numbers and words from running together.  It really "clicked".  Thanks for the tips!

[Pastor B]

Dear Class
I have used these sites in the past and they have never disappointed me. They are very useful for seminary and preaching. They’re easy to use and well vetted.
www.academicinfo.net/religindex.html
This site has a metapage with links to all sorts of sights useful for seminary. It has societies, comparative religious studies, surveys and more. They are reputable sites with a very wide range of presuppositions.
www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu
Is a very good site for seminary students. It contains a search engine for internet, journals, dissertations and thesis and more. It also has an internet guide to search for other vetted links.

Brian Shepard

[Pastor B]

Emily,

These are very good websites. Thanks for the post.

[Pastor B]

Rhonda,

I liked the pctii site aswell. It's easy to use but still has the ability to zero in on a particular artical or subject quickly.

Brian

[Emily Hall]

Your welcome!  Hope they help you as much as they have helped me.

[Emily Hall]

Glad you could use them! They have been a help to me in my past research papers.  

[Emily Hall]

No problem Rhonda.  Glad I could help.  

[Emily Hall]

Erich,

You really gave some good advice in your response.  I just graduated from University of North Carolina Wilmington and they had a writing center that would help students proof read their papers.  However, since I am taking online classes, I do not have the privilege of being on campus near the professors.  But I just wanted to emphasize the point you made about utilizing our professors.  They are willing to help.  Last semester I had to write a research paper for OT class and I was unsure about the quality of my paper.  So I emailed it to my professor and he proof read the whole thing, giving me advice and comments to help.  So don't be scared to ask!  

[SunnyE]

Thanks for the recommendations!  They are very helpful.

[SunnyE]

Thanks to everyone for posting helpful sites that they have used.  With being overseas, all of the library that I am close to have very few resources in English.  Online research will be key and theology is a new field for me! So, I have taken note of all your advice and may ask for more later on!

I have utilized the online databases from the PRC and was surprised at how much you can find there!  I realized that the more specific you can be in your search, the more time you will save sorting through the sources to find what you need.

Also, a friend of mine recommended joining Questia (www.questia.com)  It is true that you  have to pay and have a membership, but it is a huge database including many scholarly journals in all fields and even some entire books have been scanned and included there.

Someone else already mentioned wikipedia, which I used often in my previous degree.  Not to quote directly from the wiki article which is not always academic, but because they usually have a lot of links to sources at the bottom of every entry, some of which are to dissertations, etc... and are academic in nature.

[Pastor Dean]

I am so grateful for the resource that was given in Dr. Northcutt's video for grammatical help. This is one of my goals to become stronger grammatically. This has kept me from working on graduate work sooner. So it will be nice to have a reference to refer to. When I attended the University of Phoenix that had a tutorial program that you could submit your work to and they would review it for grammatical errors and send a report back to you. They did not evaluate the content of the paper, just the grammar. This helped me to pick up on repetitive grammatical errors that I was making. Has anyone seen a tutorial program that can do this?
Also, the website pctii.org is going to be a great resource to discover material and you do not have to be concerned that it is from a pentecostal standpoint or not.
I live in a small town on the Olympian peninsula so it is going to hard to get research information that I need. I will have to drive over to Northwest University in Seattle find good research material. So any feedback would be useful.

[stev]

I found Dr. Carla Northcutt lecture very informative and help full. I like her explanation of starting your paper with a general thought and narrowing it down to a thesis statement which needs to be specific, limited, meaningful and argumentative. The sites Dr Northcutt recommended are very resourceful.  Been out of the class room for many years and the www.bartleby.com/141 is important to me and will certain help in my writing.