Library Research Guide

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Submit it to the Library Research Worksheet dropbox for a completion grade
● Brainstorming a research topic: ​How are the Americans’ ways of fighting for equality in
the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the present days compared to the civil rights
movement in the 1960s?
○ Freewrite on your topic: ​Racial equality has never come to an end. It is still
happening in the present day, the recent incident of racism confirm this, the
famous death of George Floyd. Due to this people have been protesting and
creating chaos all over America. However, when comparing this to the 1960s, the
African Americans had it worse, there were way more movements, more ways to
protests. Speeches like “I Have a Dream” shows this, Rose Parks incident shows
this, the African Americans had to fight way harder for their right back then.
Because the whites were superior according to themselves. Jim Crow law, public
school, bus, and toilet segregation. Black Lives Matter is a very recent thing,
police brutality, in 1960s, arresting without trial, the KKK. President Kennedy
passed the Civil Rights Act right 1 year right after the speech. Think, think, I’m
lucky to not born in that time period? We already have abolished slavery for a
long time, the blacks are free. The protest in “Black Lives Matter” also includes
robbing and destroying properties. There were also people that are against those
kinds of actions. 14th Amendment states that blacks have equal protection. The
15th amendment says that blacks will have the right to vote. Is this too long. So
compared to the present days’ movement, the 1960s racial equality activities were
way different because they had to fight harder for themselves. The differences are
the method of making their voices be heard by the officials. ASDFG. Need more
research.
○ Organize your thoughts into a concept map (use coggle.com and attach the link
here)
https://coggle.it/diagram/X4KxyAlMQ3mky_8L/t/-/347b16e25e37455f876e7d6d
9a9ad15aa9b675329867e68025d2c78116f287c0
○ Do quick background research if you need help articulating your idea
That’s how I pulled the events on the diagram.
● Research Tools
○ List some search terms (again, background research will help with this part)
Equality, Civil Rights, I Have a Dream, Race, the 1960s, Black,
African-Americans, social injustice, social activists, movements, black lives
matter
○ Find a couple of sources in AppSearch
 1) “From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter: The African Union
and the African-Americans in the United States” by Yeboah, Roland Mireku
2) “Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement: A Comparative Analysis
of Two Social Movements in the United States” by Clayton, Dewey M
● Evaluating Information
○ Determine if any of your sources are a) suitable and b) credible
Both are credible sources because they are peer-reviewed academic journals, the
discussed dates are correctly fitted with the topic, for example, the second source
talks about the time between 1954 to 1965, and 2012 to 2018. The titles of them
seem like they are aligning with my topic, they will help me answer my research
question and learn more about this topic
You need one source to complete the next step; if you have multiple possible
sources select one. If you do not have any appropriate sources, go back a step and
keep searching until you find one. You may need to do more background research
or come up with some new search terms.
Okay.
● Additional Step: ​Annotating Sources
○ Properly cite your source in MLA and write a short paragraph about how you
know it is appropriate, how it relates to your argument, and how you may use it in
your paper.
Clayton, Dewey M. “Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement: A
Comparative Analysis of Two Social Movements in the United States.” Journal of
Black Studies, vol. 49, no. 5, 2018, pp. 448–480. America: History and Life with
Full Text, doi:10.1177/0021934718764099​.

This source’s title directly relates to my research question, of how the movements
differ in two different time periods, that is how it catches my attention.
Furthermore, it is an academic journal with peer-reviewed articles checkmark,
which makes the source appropriate. After skimming through the journal, I think
that this is a good source to use for my paper because it includes events that I
mentioned in the chart.