eng 101 finding information part ii martin j. crabtree october 2004
TRANSCRIPT
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ENG 101
Finding InformationPart II
Martin J. Crabtree
October 2004
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Agenda
• Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals
• Electronic Searching– Keywords & Boolean Searching
• Electronic Databases at Mercer– Databases available through Mercer Library– Accessing the databases
• Web Information– Some things to consider when searching the web– Searching the web– Evaluating the information you find on the web
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Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals
Different publications targeted to different
audiences
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Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals
Scholarly• Purpose is to inform the
scholarly world of original research in a given field
• Has a serious format
• Contains many graphs & charts few photos
• Regularly uses footnotes and bibliographies
• Written by scholars or researchers
Popular/General Interest• Purpose is to inform,
entertain and/or sell to a wide audience
• Attractive/slick appearance
• Frequently uses photos and a few graphs & charts
• Rarely uses footnotes or bibliographies
• Written by staff or freelance writers
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Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals
Scholarly• Uses the terminology and
jargon of the subject, assumes reader knows it
• Published by professional or educational organizations
• Contains little if any advertising
• Examples: Annals of Microbiology, Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Popular/General Interest• Rarely uses subject
terminology or jargon, when used, contains explanation
• Published by commercial enterprises for profit
• Extensive inclusion of advertisements
• Examples: Newsweek, People, Psychology Today
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Searching Electronic Databases
And The Web Too
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Starting An Electronic SearchKeywords
• Keywords are used when searching electronic databases and web search engines
• First step - Generate a list of words (keywords) that describes or is commonly used when discussing your topic. For example:– Ozone– Layer– Depletion– Atmosphere– Hole
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Starting An Electronic Search
Boolean Searching/Logic
• Boolean searching - Connecting keywords with the terms– and– not– or
• For example– eagles NOT football– (car or automobile) and exhaust
• More Terms = Fewer “Hits”
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Searching More Than Just Keywords
Phrases & Truncations• To search for a phrase, use quotation
marks– “survival of the fittest”
• Truncations allow for searching related words all at once– The * is usually used (! For Lexis-Nexis) .
For example:• “child*” would include: child, children,
childhood, childproof, etc.
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Electronic Databases at the Mercer Library
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Electronic Databases at MCCC
In General• Over 40 databases available
• Many contain periodical articles
• Not every article is available full text, abstracts (summary) is often available when full text is not
• Some are useful for searching specific subjects like business, art, or criminal justice.
• There are other useful tools like the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford Dictionary
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Electronic DatabasesIn General
• Accessible at any computer on the MCCC/JKC campus network
• Most are available off campus, need to request a password.
• Can print/e-mail/download articles
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Let’s look at a couple of databases
• EBSCOhost - Academic Search Premier– Broadest of the databases covering
everything from science to the humanities including many scholarly journals
– Not every article full text– Need Acrobat Reader for some articles
• N. Y. Times Historical Newspapers– Articles from 1851-2001– All in pdf format, need you’ll Acrobat Reader– You may need to print out large articles in
pieces
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Searching the World Wide Web
How can I find what I want?
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Some things to consider when searching the web
• Everything is NOT on the web and may never be.
• No search engine covers the entire web.
• The quality of the information on the web varies greatly.
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Searching the World Wide Web
Search Strategy• Searching the Web is much like database
searching:– Put together a list of keywords describing the
information you desire– Use Boolean logic (and, not, or) to better define
your search, use double quotes for phrases, etc.
• When searching the web, also:– Consider which search engines/sites may best suit
your search needs. Different search engines yield different results.
– Use the search engine’s “advanced search” to select limiting parameters (language, date, domain, etc.)
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Evaluating Web Information
Is this stuff any
good?
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Evaluating Web Sites
• Quality varies greatly from site to site
•YOU are the sole evaluator of the quality of information a site provides
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Five Evaluation Criteria1. Accuracy - is it reliable?2. Authority - is author qualified on subject?3. Objectivity - is the information biased?4. Currency - is the information “new”
enough?5. Coverage - does the info completely cover
the topic?
• Search engines may put you out of context, go the home page or the “about us” page to help evaluate the site
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The Bottom Line…
Buyer Beware• The web contains a vast amount of
information… but not everything
• Anyone can put information on the web, hence the quality of web information varies greatly
• YOU will often be the only person to decide if the quality of the info you find on the web is good