S574: Webbing

Before I go to the library, I want to consider what types of books and other resources I will be looking for to do my inquiry.  My chart I made in my last entry will guide me a lot in this webbing step.  Clearly, I need information on farming, so I will focus my search on the three main branches of farming that I need to learn about:  buying land, getting equipment and choosing a crop.  For these topics, I think I'll get the best information from books because farming has been around for such a long time and living in Indiana, I think my library is likely to have a lot of information on farming--whether it be for farmers or casual browsers.  However, I plan to find out any information books don't give me by calling the 4-H extension office or talking to family and friends who farm. I really don't anticipate using internet information unless I am not able to find it somewhere else.  I think I would be able to find a lot of the same information online, but I feel like since I am doing something so close to my heart, I want it to be more hands-on and personal than clicking through search results.

When I am searching at the library, I plan to start with basic search terms like farms, farming, farm machines, and crops.  Depending on the number of results I find, I might then try more specific search terms like Indiana farms, Hoosier farms, corn farming, tractors, combines, and buying land in Indiana.  (I think this narrowing down of ideas is again very much like what McKenzie is talking about in the Research Cycle (Callison 56) when he says that researchers are continually narrowing down their topic-or in this instance search results.)  Primarily, I will be looking for books on aspects of farming, but if I happen to run across some type of multimedia resource, like a video or something, I could use, I would definitely take at look at it.  I also anticipate that all of my information will be nonfiction, since I am only looking for factual material on how to actually start a farm.

I normally don't plan out how I am going to search for things before I go and do it, so I am interested to see if this will improve my findings, or at least make the search easier and more effective.  Oftentimes I run into the problem that I end up finding a lot of information that isn't very relevant other than a chapter or section of the book.  I hope that by webbing and putting forethought into my search that it will yield better results.  I will come back and write a part two of my webbing experience after I get back from the library and tell how my search strategies panned out and if/how I had to modify them.  As for right now, thinking through all of this before I go to the library feels a lot like the presearching that Follett's Pathways to Knowledge Information Skills Model talks about (Callison 57).  Unlike most people (including me in the past), I just jump right into the research.  However, I am thinking about good key words, considering my prior knowledge or farming and defining a clear outline of what I need to look for when I start my search.  I hope that it ends up paying off for me in the coming stages!