10 tips to avoid information overload
DESCRIPTION
A countdown of 10 tips on how to avoid information overload. Offering advice on filtering out the noise whilst researching for a PhDTRANSCRIPT
Sam Aston
10 Top tips for avoiding information overload
Sam Aston
Sam Aston
Summary and Objectives
• General advice, not prescriptive
• Searching advice
• Personalisation
• Online bookmarking tools
• Current awareness services
Sam Aston
No. 10. Time
• Schedule your work
• Schedule your down time
• Make use of ‘dead time’
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No. 9. Distracting technology
• Telephone
• PDAs
• Instant messaging
• Online chat
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• Construct a systematic search• Write a search profile
– What is the topic?– What are trying to find out…the aim?– What is the research question
• If it helps keep a notebook/diary• Think of useful keywords and synonyms
No.8. Take control of your search
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Example Search Profile
• Topic
• Research Question
• Aim of the Investigation– Parameters– Time– Place
• Languages
• Keywords
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No. 7. Discovery tools
• Fit for purpose– Subject– Date coverage– Documents– Organisation– Publisher– Record the discovery tools that you use!
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No. 6. Advanced search
• Further refines results
• Applies to databases & search engines
• Apply limiters
• Use Boolean searching
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Search techniques
• Boolean logic – (AND, OR & NOT) (University of Leicester)
• AND will link the terms to find only articles that mention both concepts – eg: tobacco AND advertising
• OR will broaden the search by looking for synonyms, alternative spellings, abbreviations and plurals – eg: United Nations OR UN
• NOT can be used when you need to narrow the search by excluding certain keywords or concepts – eg: industrial action NOT fire service
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No. 5. Use an aggregator
• ‘Aggregators reduce the amount of time and effort needed to regularly check web sites for updates, creating a unique information space or “newspaper”’ (Wikipedia)
• ‘Pulled’ rather then ‘pushed’• Easy to subscribe and unsubscribe• Portals or start pages e.g. igoogle, my Yahoo
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No. 4. Reference Mgmt
• Use reference management software to keep track of references.
• E.g. Endnote/Refworks
• Software will often store articles for you
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No.3. Online bookmarking tool
• Use a bookmarking tool.• Eg. Del.icio.us, Connotea, Zotero.• Student portal
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No. 2. Personalisation
• Personal account within a preferred database.
• Free and easy (though all have different features)
• Saves searches, saves results
• Runs searches for you
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No. 1. Current awareness services
• Current awareness services will alert you when the latest edition of a journal is published.
• E-mail • RSS Feed • Zetoc• Tic Tocs
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A Happy Ending!
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Your turn
• Beginning at the Library home page set up an alert for a journal title in your field.
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Thank you & Evaluation
• Thank you
• Please complete the online evaluation form