Finding and Evaluating Resources Helen Power hpower@uwindsor.ca September 2018

Agenda Publication timelines Evaluating resources Effectively searching Google Finding relevant resources in databases

Activity: Publication timelines In pairs, look at these publication types and order them from quickest to be published to the longest to be published Scholarly book Scholarly journal Trade or professional journal Tweet Newspaper article Magazine article Reference Materials

Information Timeline Graphic by adstarkel. Used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Evaluating Resources Apply the CRAAP test However, it’s much more complicated than yes or no Currency When was it published? When was it last updated? Does your topic need more recent information? A tweet? A journal article?

Does this resource answer your question? What are you using this for? Relevance Does this resource answer your question? What are you using this for? Entertainment? Then use the tweet! For a school paper? To understand popular opinion of a topic?

Authority Who is the author/publisher? What are their credentials? Newspapers? Journal articles? Professional organizations?

Accuracy Where is the information from? Are arguments supported? Is the source peer reviewed? Considering language used. Is it biased? Simple grammatical errors?

Purpose Is it meant to educate, to sell something, to entertain? Is the information fact or opinion? Consider political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional and personal biases

CRAAP Test Currency Relevance Authority Accuracy Purpose When was it published? When was it last updated? Does your topic need more recent information? Relevance Does this resource answer your question? What is your purpose for using it? Authority Who is the author/publisher? What are their credentials? Accuracy Where is the information from? Are arguments supported? Is the source peer reviewed? Purpose Is it meant to educate, to sell something, to entertain? Is there bias? Is the information fact or opinion?

Activity: Evaluate this Two scenarios: You’re working on an assignment, and you’re trying to decide if this is a good resource to cite in your paper. You’re arguing with your friend about whether or not medical cannabis can be prescribed to children. Is this a good resource to support your argument? Apply the CRAAP criteria to evaluate this resource: https://globalnews.ca/news/4325665/medical-cannabis-for- kids/ OR https://bit.ly/2KT9jSE

Activity: take up Currency Relevance Authority Accuracy Purpose July 2018. Very current. Relevance Using it to settle an argument/personal – this is a great resource! If for an assignment… you may have to use it if it’s the only thing on your topic. Authority Reporter, but she interviewed the expert. Expert opinion… Accuracy Not peer reviewed. Consulted an expert Purpose Meant to educate the general public. Newspapers may be biased.

Next steps? Check to see if you can find the original paper See if the results are misinterpreted/biased If no scholarly article published…

Google!

Using Google Google is great for when you don’t know your keywords Google is great for finding grey literature Publications by professional organizations, theses, etc.

Google Tips “ “ – quotation marks to search exact phrases site: function lets you search a website Ex. site:uwindsor.ca nursing link: results that link to that page Ex. link:https://globalnews.ca/news/4325665/medical- cannabis-for-kids/ related: results are webpages that are related to the one you searched Ex. related:https://globalnews.ca

Google Tips continued intitle: search one word in the title with other keywords Ex. children Ontario intitle:cannabis allintitle: function searches all the words in the title Ex. prescribing allintitle:children cannabis filetype: lets you search for a specific filetype Ex. Uwindsor timetable 2018 filetype:pdf

Activity Find all mentions of the keyword “Cannabis” on the RNAO website Find the PDF statement RNAO released about Bill 174 Find webpages that are considered “related” to the RNAO website

Activity Answers site:rnao.org cannabis filetype:pdf site:rnao.org “bill 174” related:www.rnao.org

https://www.google.ca/advanced_search

Searching databases!

Boolean Operators, anyone? AND Used between concepts when you want all the concepts in your search results Ex: cannabis AND children OR Used between synonyms, related terms Ex: cannabis OR “medical marijuana” * Used to represent 0 or more letters at the end of a word Ex: child*

Example search (Child* OR pediatric* OR paediatric) AND (cannabis OR “medical marijuana”) AND (prescrib* OR prescription*) leddy.uwindsor.ca

Activity: Search for your research topic! Ask me questions. Now’s your chance!