Engineering Disaster Project Guide: Engineering

This is a LONG presentation--15 minutes. It's going to be a lot easier to fill that time if you find a disaster that you are genuinely interested in, and drill down on specifics. You might have to read a few articles about engineering failures or specific disasters until you find one that you want to focus on. Allow yourself the time to explore!

*Wikipedia can be a good place to START this exploration, but it is not "academic" and should not be included as a source. Use Wikipedia as a springboard, not a final destination.

Here's how to format a citation in APA:

A book:

Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. & Additional Author, First Initial. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter only for first word of title and subtitle. Publisher Name.

A web site:

Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year, Month Date). Title of page. Site name. Retrieved Month, Day, Year, from URL

A digital article:

Lastname, F. M., & Lastname, F. M. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, Vol.(Issue), page numbers. DOI

Here's how to format an in-text citation in APA:

Standard Format (digital)

(Author's Last Name, Publication Date)

Standard Format (print)

(Author's Last Name, Publication Date, p. #).

·      The 1937 Hindenburg Disaster
·      The 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse
·      The 2021 Surfside Condominium Collapse
·      The 1970 Apollo 13 Accident
·      The 1986 Challenger Disaster
·      The 2003 Columbia Disaster
·      The 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Accident
·      The 1986 Chernobyl Disaster
·      The 1979 Three Mile Island Accident
 

Searching "disaster" in a big database like Jstor or even the NYTimes will generate an overwhelming amount of results. So, how to find the needle in the haystack?

I'd recommend two search stratiges for this part of the research process: citation chaining and subject searches.

Advanced databases like JStor make it easy to find related articles by using the article's references. Click the "references" section and read through the bibliography--then you can pull any relevant articles from this list. 

Jstor also has a "related articles" box that is similarly helpful.

You can also use this technique in Google Scholar--click the "cited by" or "related" links in your search results page.

Or, read the reference list at the bottom of the article. Note: you may hit a pay wall if you use Google Scholar.

Information on advanced databases is organized by key word (subject, terms). Academic Search Premiere makes it easy to use this form of organization to find additional resources.

Type in a general term, then skim through your search results. Check out the related subjects and click those links to find more articles. You can also filter by a specific term if you need more specificity. This can take you to some interesting places and sources that you might not have found on your own!

This presentation requires 4 primary sources. Luckily, these disasters will have generated a lot of interest, so they should be fairly easy to find. There are two great places to start: government records and newspapers.

If you are interesting in an international disaster, you can use local government records or local newspapers. The New York Times should also have fairly comprehensive international coverage. Check out the library's A-Z database list for the rest of our newspaper resources.