The topic I chose to research is metaphors in the work of Langston Hughes. I started my process off by choosing four pieces of his work to reference from. After knowing the specific pieces I wanted to use, I begin looking for sources on the Galileo database on the Savannah State University website. I didn’t use any outside sources to conduct my research. This is my second time using the Galileo database to construct a research paper, so it became easier to do this time. I was able to put together specific key words to pick out the important information and the useless information. When researching, I discovered the database gave me more helpful sources when I capitalized the word in which was most important. For example, instead of researching “metaphors Langston Hughes”, I wrote, “METAPHOR Langston Hughes.” By doing this, the database was able to give me more options closely related to my topic. A technique that I found to be unhelpful is when I just put Hugh’s name. Instead of giving me information on his pieces, they just gave biographies. When gathering my first five sources I found it very helpful to take notes that seemed important and not so much important so I would have plenty of information to conduct my paper. I gathered about nine sources before I narrowed it down to five. As I was reading over my sources, I found that some were helpful and, others were not, and some repeated the same information I already had in previous sources. I collected most of my notes from academic journals that criticized Hughes’s work. From each source, I paraphrased any information I wrote down, accept quotes, so that I could avoid plagiarism. Writing down the page numbers were always helpful for when I needed to go back and look at the article to add more information to my paper. The capitalization of the word metaphor really made a big difference this time around during my research. I was able to narrow down the unimportant facts much faster than last time.
There are also many roadblocks I seem to come across when researching in a database. Many times I typed in keywords that came up “no result.” When my search returned no results, I simply widened my search criteria by dropping useless words and adding more keywords. By deleting some of the non-required information I entered, the database was able to supply me with more than helpful sources. One thing I learned that was also helpful was using the tools that the databases provided. Things such as narrowing down my search and the advanced search were also extremely helpful. When narrowing my search I asked for specific journals and eBooks. Advanced Search included additional options such as City, County, Middle Name, Maiden Name, Birth Year, Death Year, Marriage Year or Divorce Year. Giving the database as much information to work with worked out for the best in my