ENG221 – Finding Information

Martin J. Crabtree

MCCC LibraryJune 2006

Agenda• Finding/using books & periodicals• Electronic searching

– Keywords, Boolean searching, truncations, & field limiters

• Electronic databases from the library– Accessing the databases– Useful databases for ENG221

• Searching the Web – A few things to consider when using search

engines– The Invisible Web– Thinking about the quality of the web info you find

• Giving credit to your information sources

Finding BooksUsing The Card Catalog

• The catalog is available online. Used to find books, videos and other material in the MCCC collection (not periodicals).

• You will also find items available at the Mercer County Public (MCL) libraries.

• You can request that materials from MCL be brought to the college. Deliveries arrive Tuesday and Friday afternoons. (DVD’s not available from MCL)

• Link to the catalog is on the library’s web pages.

Periodicals

• Periodicals include:– scholarly journals– newspapers– magazines

• Periodicals represent the bulk of published scholarly information.• The library has a number of periodicals available in

print, on microfilm, and especially via electronic databases.

• The library staff can help determine if a specific

periodical is available from the library.

Following the citation trail…

• Most journal articles have a bibliography at the end of them.

• This is a list of the books, articles, websites, etc. that the author used in preparing the article

• These citations can be VERY helpful in your research.

Following the citation trail…

• Say you find a really great journal article• Check out the bibliography/citations at

the end of the article. • The author of the article may have

already done some of your research for you!

• This list of items (focused on the topic of the article) will likely have more useful things for your research.

Searching Electronic Databases

And The Web Too

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

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”

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 example:

• “child*” would include: child, children, childhood, childproof, etc.

Searching More Than Just Keywords

Field Limiters• Database field limiters allow you to

specify your search within varied parameters for example:– Only full-text articles– Only peer reviewed/scholarly journals– Limit your search to just the titles,

abstracts, the full-text, etc. of an article– Date (or date range)

Let’s take a quick look at how Boolean searching can help

Electronic Databases at the Mercer Library

Electronic DatabasesIn General

• Over 60 databases available• Not every article is available full text

though many are• Abstracts (summary) is often

available when full text is not

Electronic DatabasesIn General

• Accessible at any computer on the MCCC/JKC campus network.

• Most are available off campus. You will need a password/ID (forma available after this presentation).

• Can print/e-mail/download articles.

The link to the databases is on all of the library’s web pages.

Some of the databases• Academic Search Premier - EBSCOHost

– 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

• Literature Resource Center – Criticisms, biographies, and other information about

authors and their works.

• Ethnic NewsWatch – A collection of “newspapers, magazines and journals of

the ethnic, minority and native press”– Available in English and Spanish

Searching the World Wide Web

How can I find what I want?

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 “invisible web” is huge!

• Though there has yet to be consensus, estimates put the size of the invisible web between 2 and 500 times bigger than the “visible” (or surface) web.

Searching the World Wide Web

Search Strategy• Searching the Web is much like database

searching:– Use keywords and Boolean logic (and, not, or) to

better define your search, use double quotes for phrases, etc.

• When searching the web, also consider:– Different search engines yield different results.

You may want to try using more that just your “regular” search engine.

– Use the search engine’s “advanced search” to select limiting parameters (language, date, domain, etc.).

Searching the World Wide Web Search Engines & Meta Sites

• Become familiar with your search engines features:– http://www.infopeople.org/search/chart.html– http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/– http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/

Internet/SearchEngines.html

• Meta search sites (like Ask Jeeves, Dogpile):– Allow you to search more than one search engines

at once.– Can generate more “stuff” to sift through– Limited to only basic searches, can’t use advanced

search features– Some results can be from “paid for listing” search

engines

The Invisible WebWhy is so much being missed?

• When using a search engine, you are searching a database that represents what is known to be on the web

• Spiders or crawlers roam the web from link to link generating this database

• Works extremely well for static all text pages in the HTML language

• The problem arises when pages are ever changing or not in HTML

So where is all of this stuff hiding?

• By far, a great amount is contained in databases (both paid and free)

• Other places include:– Non-text information such as photos or

audio– PDF formatted documents– Very new web pages– Password only access information

Finding the invisible stuff

• The key is knowing when you need “invisible” information and then where to find it.

• Not every web search requires looking in the invisible web.

• Search engines work best when looking for a narrow, focused topic.

Some helpful websites

• www.lii.org – An annotated index to internet resources.

• http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/ -Celebration of Women Writers, lists links to biographical and bibliographical information about women writers.

• http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/index.html - Voices from the Gaps, contains biographical and critical analysis of women writer of color.

• Refer to the “Electronically Accessible Information from the MCCC Library” pamphlet for a list of other websites.

Evaluating Web Sites

Is this stuff any

good?

Evaluating Web Sites

• Quality varies greatly from site to site

• YOU are the sole evaluator of the quality of information a site provides

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?

Evaluating Web SitesHome Page & Site Extensions

• Search engines may put you out of context, go to the home page or “about us” page to help you evaluate the site.

• The site extension can help evaluate information– .gov - Governmental sites– .edu - Educational institution sites– .com - Commercial sites– .org - Not for profit organization sites– .mil - Military sites– Others are being creates that are less clear cut,

e.g.: .net or .co.uk

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

Let’s take a look at a website…

Inseparables by Florence Fuller ca.1900

Still people can get fooled…

Using the information you find

...and giving credit where credit is due.

Using the Information You Find

• Always give credit to the author or creator of the information that you use.

• This includes not only the actual facts, conclusions, and ideas that an author presents but also the words that he/she has used.

Plagiarism can take many forms

• Plagiarism, the presenting of someone else’s intellectual work as your own.

• It may be done deliberately, but it may also be done without your realizing it.

• The copying, word for word, from a book or an article is the most blatant form of plagiarism.

Plagiarism when paraphrasing or writing a

summary• Incomplete paraphrasing or summarizing another’s work could cause plagiarizing without your realizing it.

• To prevent this, you should avoid: Using the original sentence structure. Simply substituting a few words here and

there. Using any of the author's key words or

unusual words.

• Let’s look at an example...

Good paraphrasing

• It takes some effort to do a good job of paraphrasing.

• One helpful method is to: 1. Read the original sentence

2. Without looking at the sentence, try writing the idea of the sentence in your own words

3. Look back at the original sentence again to see it you haven’t used too much of the original language

-Adapted from “Avoiding Plagiarism”, at the University of the Sciences inPhiladelphia webpage: http://www.usip.edu/writing/plagrsm.shtml

Giving credit using the MLA format

•For this class you will be using the MLA format.

•The library has the MLA Handbook– MLA handbook for writers of research papers at:

LB2369.G53 2003 (in the reference collection & at the circulation desk).

•For online MLA help try:– www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocMLA.html– http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/

557/01/

Now it’s your turn to do some research…