Information Sources for Academic Work: Beyond Google and Wikipedia Eleri Strittmatter, Faculty Team Librarian for Computer Science, & Barry White, Faculty Team Librarian

Looking for information Step 1. Know what you’re looking for. Step 2. Search strategy. Step 3. Searching - where to search. Step 4. Assessing & Refining. Step 5. Wrapping it up. : Define your topic A sentence that succinctly describes the essence of what you need to know www.mindmapper.com www.thebrain.com

Know what you’re looking for What do you want to find - Definitions? History? Current research? Is there an Answer? Text, Data, Images Level Free book search http://books.google.com/ http://www.freebooksearch.net/

Your task questions: What is a 'web address' such as 'http://www.bbc.co.uk' How does knowing one of these allow my computer to fetch pages of information from elsewhere in the world? Why do these addresses have 'http://' on the front? What does the rest of the address mean? How does my browser know what to draw on the page? What is the relationship between 'the internet' and 'the web'?

Aboutness, Depth, Association What is X? How much do we need to know about X? 3. What else does X relate to? * that I know about already * that I need to know about 4. Is X an instance of a more general concept? * if so, what? 5. What alternatives are there to X? * what are their pros and cons? 6. Can I give a few examples of X?

Search Strategy: Asking the right questions Search statement Keywords /phrases Synonyms Broader and narrower terms Concept Mapping - Mindmap : Define your topic A sentence that succinctly describes the essence of what you need to know www.mindmapper.com www.thebrain.com

Search Statement Use of Fuzzy Logic in Robot Navigation

Combine terms – Boolean searching. Phrase searching.

Places to Look - Internet Pros Easy to use Always find something It’s free! Cons No quality control Not comprehensive Not necessarily free.

Places to Look – Library Resources Pros High quality - academic Includes non-web stuff It’s free! Cons Hard to use Paper and digital Not comprehensive

Where to look Definitions – dictionaries, standards, etc. Background – encyclopedias, textbooks, etc. Current research –journal articles, conference papers, etc. News, commentaries – newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc.

Library – Where to look Books - catalogue http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk

Library – Where to look Journal articles, conference papers Subject databases http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk

Internet Search Tools Directory Sites Single / Meta Search Engines Some search different areas of the Internet (Single/Meta) Differences in search functionality (Keyword, phrase,Boolean, Limits) Some display your results differently (visual presentations) Some provide additional functions (cited by, Findit, export) Some look for a particular kind of information (people search) Some Mash up data sources (Wolfram Alpha) Examples of different types of Search engines http://www.philb.com/whichengine.htm viewzi (screeenshot) search-cube http://www.search-cube.com/ (arrow keys) Specialist – disney http://go.com/ http://thesearchenginelist.com/

Web Directories Accredited sites Yahoo http://dir.yahoo.com/ Google http://www.google.com/dirhp Intute http://www.intute.ac.uk http://www.google.com/dirhp http://dir.yahoo.com

Search Engines Not only Google and Yahoo Coverage, functionality, presentation, etc. Comparison site http://www.philb.com/whichengine.htm

Smarter searching in Google “More” features Advanced Search Tips Google Scholar http://www.google.co.uk ~keyword for synonym ~keyword for synonym searching

Advantages of Scholar – Find it links, Cited by, related articles

Assessing the WWW(W) Who wrote it? What’s it like? Why was it written? Reliability (check another source) Intellectual level Why was it written? When was it written? Currency – is it up to date?

Who? Anyone can put stuff on the internet Who is the author? Academic or from professional organisation?

What! Do you trust it? Spelling, grammar? Does it make sense? Logical? Is it reliable? References? Check elsewhere.

Why? Are you being sold something? Product information Bias

When? Is it up to date? Does date matter?

Refining your search What’s missing? Other search terms – terminology Follow links and citations

Recording search results Export to email etc Use a Wiki to log your references Try Delicious, Cite–u-Like Bibliographic management software - Endnote http://delicious.com/

Observe Copyright No multiple copies/downloads No more than 5% or 1 chapter No more than 1 article from a journal issue

References and citations. Writing it up References and citations. Part of the scholarly apparatus. Give credit where it’s due. Helps others follow your arguments. Shows you’ve done the work.

Writing it up Plagiarism Plagiarism is presenting the ideas, work or words of other people without proper, clear and unambiguous acknowledgement. Stealing someone else’s work. Not giving credit where it’s due.

Plagiarism Plagiarism is presenting the ideas, work or words of other people without proper, clear and unambiguous acknowledgement. This includes the unattributed use of parts of books or articles, passing it off as your own. (http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/~peter/3-4Handbook-2007.pdf Accessed 01/12/2009)

Recap Define the problem Decide the strategy Decide where to search Search, Evaluate, Refine Write it up / present it What are we trying to find? Which tool/s? Evaluating, selecting, synthezising, documenting Sharing results