Research Project- Summary

Craig Campbell Professor Crowther English 1102 3/11/09 Summary of Research Strategies I began my research by physically collecting any and all hard copy books that were related to Andrew Carnegie. I used the online library catalog to find these books by using terms such as “Andrew Carnegie” and “Andrew Carnegie Biography”. I also searched for the terms “Carnegie Company” and “Homestead Strike” since I was aware that this was the name of Carnegie’s company and the name given to the violent strike that occurred at his main steel mill, Homestead (I had this knowledge prior to starting the research due to a documentary I had watched a few years ago). These keywords resulted in about 25 books that were available from the library so I collected these books and then began to sort through them to find the best resources. I immediately set aside two books, which were collections of essays and articles written by Andrew Carnegie since these were magnificent primary sources. I also set aside a book that was purely about the town of Homestead and contained a large section detailing the 1892 strike that occurred there. Since the major subtopics I was focusing on were the separation of classes, use of technology, and the growth of industry, I began to sort through the remaining books by skimming through each table of contents for chapters that were relevant to my subtopics and then skimming through the various chapters and seeing if the book provided any actual usable information. In this manner, I was able to find five books that gave me information from both primary and secondary sources on Andrew Carnegie relating to his rise from the working class, the growth of his industry, and his embracement of technology that helped to fuel his company’s amazing

growth. Next, I decided that I would finish off the collection of my print sources by searching for articles in the online databases. Although I utilized the library’s database search tools (including the beta meta-search tool), I had a very hard time finding articles that were relevant to my research. Every article I found ended up being a book review or a very short essay that contained no useful information. I eventually was able to find several usable articles but this aspect of the research, overall, was very difficult. I chose my articles by simply skimming them and stopping on any section that appeared relevant to my subtopics. In most cases, the short length of the articles made this a quick process but most proved unusable. I also utilized the New York Time’s online database of vintage articles in order to find the original front-page article that broke the news of the violence at the Homestead strike to the world. Although I had never used this resource, the New York Time’s database proved much easier to navigate through than the databases supplied by the library. After I had gathered all of my print sources (both electronic and printed), I decided to move on to the purely online sources, which I correctly assumed would be easy to locate. I quickly constructed an advanced Google query to return back results from only .edu websites for the keyword “Andrew Carnegie”. Although many of these results proved to be unreliable (due to the lack of any bibliography or author’s name), there were a select few that were either created by professors at distinguished universities (such as Columbia) or thoroughly documented with a bibliography. The final research category, visual resources, proved to be the most difficult since I simply could not locate images that had information on their origins. This made it

impossible to verify the authenticity of the photograph and to properly cite it. I managed to locate two documented photographs online, one of Andrew Carnegie and one of a vintage comic depicting Carnegie, but could not find any others. After many fruitless hours, I realized that I still had my print sources and discovered that two of the books contained amazing images related to Carnegie’s life that were properly cited. These newly discovered pictures finished off the visual resources but I learned that it is much easier to locate visual resources from printed resources than it is from online resources simply because of the needed documentation. Printed resources and online resources were not new to me so I found them with relative ease; however, I had never relied on databases for articles before and I had a vey difficult time in finding articles that matched my research interests. Personally, I found the search tools provided to be inadequate and was disappointed with the overall organization of the databases. In comparison to other forms of resources, I believe the database articles were the most difficult to locate and properly cite. Although I did not enjoy using the databases, I know that it will benefit me in the future since I now understand how to fully use the system. I will most likely still find the system confusing, but I am happy that I have now been exposed to it so that it is not as bad the second time around. Hopefully, the meta-search tool will eventually solve the search issues with the databases once it finally has the bugs worked out of it (I encountered so many errors that it actually made the beta tool unusable). Although I started out with only a general idea of what I intended my research to revolve around, I learned that it is very important to have a firm idea of the topic being researched and several related subtopics. The subtopics were the most helpful to me since

they helped to hone my research onto the resources that were most related to the topics I was exploring. I could have simply cited every article and book related to Andrew Carnegie but my subtopics saved me from this mistake and ensured that the resources I finally decided on were not only about my research topic but focused on the important aspects of that topic that related to my research area (growth of industry, separation of social classes, and use of technology). Overall, I feel that my project turned out amazing. I put a lot of effort into choosing my resources and I believe that this has paid off. I also decided to utilize a digital portfolio in order to display the final results of my work and I believe that this helps to present my findings in a unique and interesting way. The resulting website links all of my documents together (from the proposal to this summary) and I believe that it gives my research a much more fluid feel. The project was a lot of work but the knowledge that I have gained about the research process makes it worthwhile along with the newfound appreciation I now have for researchers in general.