From: "Lloyd W. Hanson"
Subject: Research Requests (Nationalism in Romantic Music)
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

Hello David

On 09-Jan-00, you requested information about Nationalism and the Romantic
Period for a paper you were writing.

The VOCALIST gets many of these requests. Each of them appear to be asking
for research information which is really the responsibility of the writer,
not this list.

If one is writing a research paper for any class, be it Junior High, Senior
High, College or Graduate School that assignment should be primarily
considered as a task that is designed to teach one how to DO research.
Requesting information from someone else is one way of doing this research
but it is the poorest possible method because it does not help the writer
to learn the procedures for obtaining accurate information through
documented sources which are best found in a library.

"On line" research is becoming more and more common and, if documented, is
acceptable. If not documented it should never be included in a research
paper unless it is clearly defined as opinion, even if it is expert
opinion. But on line research does not teach one how to use a library
efficiently and that is the name of the game in research writing.

It is not uncommon for even 5th or 6th semester college students to have
seldom or never used the campus library. Until the Internet has, in place,
a system of academic documentation such as found in the library system it
(the Internet) is not a reliable source for research data.

Presently, the Internet is a great source of current events and opinion and
an unbelievable opportunity for us to communicate easily and rather
inexpensively with each other. But the Internet is not yet a good source
of accurate, documented, historical data from which the writer of a
research paper can expect to extrapolate ideas and concepts with any degree
of reliability.



Regards
--
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA
Professor of Voice, Vocal Pedagogy
School of Performing Arts
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011