Information literacy ESS November 2011, Wouter Gerritsma & Hugo Besemer

Information Literate?  Finding  Managing  Using  Keeping upto date  Searching  Selecting  EndNote  Referencing  Publishing  Alerts

Searching: sources  Use the right source To start your (re)search

Orientation  Course materials (references?)  Encyclopedias/handbooks  Books  Journal articles ● Reviews  Authorative websites (IPCC, EGU/AGU, IGBP, Earth Ref Org etc.)IPCCEGUAGUIGBPEarth Ref Org Hands on: How many entries are there on modeling in the " Encyclopedia of global warming and climate change"

Scholarly journals – trade journals  Scientic journals ● Research ● Peer reviewed  Trade journals ● Practice ● Editorial review Hands on: What are some top journals in the ESS field?

Test yourself  Where is the following book located: Jacobson, M.C., Earth system science : from biogeochemical cycles to global change. Amsterdam, Academic Press. 527p.  What is the title of the following article: Dunlap, R. et al Earth Sci. Infor. 1(3/4):131  How many review articles are there in Scopus on ["Biogeochemical cycl*" model*]

Discovery tools  Books, reports  Journal articles  Catalogues  Websites of institutes  Bibliographies  Scholarly search engines

Coverage Bibliographies  Scopus / Web of Science ● All sciences, better at physical sciences the A&H  CAB abstracts ● Agriculture, forestry, nature, ecology, soil science  SciFinder Scholar ● Chemistry  Use the portal environmental sciencesportal environmental sciences ● Check the Geology pagesGeology

Differences in databases Sensitivity of models on leaching of pesticides to groundwater WoSScopusCABSciFinder After dedup Use more than one database for exhaustive searches

Search strategy  Find efficiently the information your are looking for  Good Search strategy

Concepts What are the effects of disturbed peat land areas on methane emissions and the greenhouse effect

Concepts What are the effects of disturbed peat land areas on methane emissions and the greenhouse effect

Search terms  Disturbed OR disturbance OR degradation OR drainage OR removal  Peatland(s) OR bog(s) OR mire(s)  Methane OR CH4  Greenhouse effect OR global warming OR Climatic change OR climate change OR greenhouse gases

Final result

Searching for a topic  Analysis of the concepts  Determine search terms  Use wild cards and/or "phrase searching"  Combine with Boolean operators  Check results; refine search

Snowballing  Follow the references in your article ● You only find older articles  Follow the citations to your article ● You find newer articles ● WoS, Scopus & GS  Perform related searches ● On authors ● On references (co-citation analysis)

Searching for data sets  To find suitable data sets there are no general discovery tools available yet  You should search for the metadata describing the data, rather than the data itself  A listing of metadata repositories are available  Add an additional concept to your searches with terms as data, dataset(s), "data set(s)"

Selecting and judging the results  Scan titles  Look at publication years  Look for document types  Read wider ● Read abstracts ● Read introductions/ discussions ● Read complete articles  Blackboard module 5

Manage references and PDF articles  Use EndNote/Mendeley  Download references from databases ● Scan PDF files  Use EndNote/Mendeley to format reference lists in reports/articles

Questions? Start working! Tomorrow: BB Wednesday: Test Friday 9th: Assessment More questions: