ENG 101

Finding InformationPart II

Martin J. Crabtree

October 2004

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

Scholarly vs. Popular Periodicals

Different publications targeted to different

audiences

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

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

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 Lexis-Nexis) .

For example:• “child*” would include: child, children,

childhood, childproof, etc.

Electronic Databases at the Mercer Library

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

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

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

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 quality of the information on the web varies greatly.

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.)

Evaluating Web Information

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?

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

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