Searching the Literature planning a search using information resources effectively Biology, Culture & Society November 2009

Today’s workshop planning a search where to look finding answers keeping references presentation workbook & online tutorials

Gathering information 1 – definitions 2 – search strategy 3 – choose resources 4 – begin searches 5 – refine searches 6 – note the source of information used

What are you looking for? Planning is the key: look carefully at your topic break it down into concepts or themes e.g. “discuss the role of language in politeness” languagepoliteness

Boolean operators AND –both words must be present in the record for it to be retrieved OR –either word or both must be present in the record for it to be retrieved

Boolean operators AND language AND politeness OR etiquette OR politeness

Boolean operators use the Boolean operators to help you express your search logically e.g. languagepoliteness AND

Synonyms and spellings think about other terms which mean the same i.e. synonyms, or related terms remember alternative spellings e.g. US vs British languagepoliteness linguisticscourtesy etiquette AND OR

Widening a search Other options with keyword searching: use truncation to pick up plurals or other word endings –e.g. cultur* = culture, cultures, cultural, culturally use wildcards to pick up spelling variants – e.g. behavio?r = behavior, behaviour use adjaceny for words appearing in the same sentence –e.g. nature SAME nuture = nature nurture, nature versus nurture, nurture as opposed to nature,...

Have a go... in pairs plan these searches using the simple grid structure break questions down into key terms/concepts think of synonyms, alternative spelling and plurals, etc decide which Boolean operators are required How does the folklore of Eastern Europe reflect the culture? What part do genes play in human intelligence?

folkloreeast* europ*cultur* OROROR fairytale*balkan*custom* OROROR fairy tale*polandtradition*OR folktale*polishOR folk tale* hungar* AND

human intellig*gene OROROR homo sapiens intellect*genesOR IQgenetic* OR genom* AND

Selecting your resources What kind of information do you want? How much information do you want? Which “finding aids” cover this type of information? e.g. –Library Catalogue for books –databases such as WoK for journal articles –Intute: social sciences for web links –LexisNexis Executive for newspapers

Searching the web Why evaluate? –Anyone can be a web author –No controls over what is posted on the web –Very little material is peer-reviewed or edited –Much of the information may be out of date See Internet Anthropologist

Practical First connect to the internet From the Current Student’s Gateway page click on: Library | Subject information | Anthropology | Information skills | Training 1