WRI 122 Kristin Fink

kfink@pcc.edu
Librarian: Robin Shapiro robin.shapiro@pcc.edu
Term: Spring 2009

Homework #1 and Paper #2 Assignment:

Evaluation Essay on Merit-based pay, or pay-for-performance for people who work for non-profit organizations. Homework #1 is the preliminary annotated bibliography, and Paper #2 will use these sources to support an essay.

Research Process Notes:

 

Where do I start?

Research starts with an information need. For this assignment, you're asked to consider paying people in non-profit jobs according to their merit. As you think about the general topic, you're likely to come up with different terms and questions: merit pay, pay for performance, evaluation, criteria; how can you tell which nurse or teacher does the best work? Does performance pay really affect people's work?

Write down a few interesting research questions, and some of the terms you've thought about. Now you're ready to find some information!

How do I find information on this?

The PCC Library subscribes to dozens of article databases. Databases provide access to thousands of articles from newspapers, magazines, trade journals, scholarly journals, and more. The library groups some databases together for ease of searching, and each database is also searchable individually. Use the Research Tools menu on the right sidebar to access Databases by Subject.

The issue of performance pay has been investigated and written about a fair amount. Think about the kinds of people who are interested in this issue: educators, business managers, health care administrators, legislators -- there are many groups discussing merit pay. Depending on your research questions, you may want to choose sources related to employee evaluation, specific professions, etc.

I recommend looking at a minimum of 2 kinds of sources: one related to your specific research questions, and one news source. The following are likely to be useful based on your research questions:

Business Source Premier (for the business and management background)
EBSCOhost Education and Counseling (for education, social work, and related professsions)
EBSCOhost Health & Medicine (for nursing and health care professions)
Right-click on one link to open it in another window, so you can go back and forth with the directions.
A synonym for "Performance Pay" is "Merit Pay" You may need to enter both terms to get articles that use either term.
In one search box, put "Performance Pay" in Quotation marks. (That means that the database will only find articles that have these two words side by side.)
In the next box down, use the pull down menu and change "AND" to "OR"
Now, in the second search box type in "Merit Pay"
Leave the "AND" in front of the 3rd search box, and in that box type the career you are exploring.
Nurses, teachers, social workers, police, etc.
In the little check boxes below the search boxes, be sure to check "Apply Related Words" and "Full Text"
Here is a sample you can use to see if you got things correct. SAMPLE OF MERIT PAY SEARCH.
Now click search.
With luck, you will find a list of articles, all of which you can read through the computer. If not, try a different name for your career. (Health workers instead of nurses, educators instead of teachers...)
From your results list, read the abstract (summary) of the article. If it seems like this is a good match for your research, click on the link below that summary that says "Full Text." From there you can print, save, or email the article to yourself.
If you email the article to yourself, notice that, on the right-hand side, you can send the email with a Citation in MLA or APA style. If you do that, when you open your email, you can copy the citation provided and paste it into your works cited page.

News articles can provide commentary and discussion that further inform your essay.

LexisNexis Academic Universe provides access to thousands of newspapers and news magazines around the world. If another state or country has experimented with merit pay for social workers, you can find out what their experience has been.

Putting it all together

There are some great resources available to help you assemble your research and thought into an well-formatted essay. Check out the "How To" sidebar on the right, and feel free to contact the library any time you have research questions.

 

Related:
Class Pages, Subject Guides A to Z