EPQ Research Skills

Making a start The key is finding and selecting the best resources Make sure you have a variety of resources This will show the reader that you have carried out a full search which increases your chances of finding credible material

Where do YOU look first? Google? NO Wikipedia? NO – why? – Watch Professor Wikipedia Y Y Ask a friend? NO The Library? OF COURSE

Why The Library? It is the gateway to all knowledge It has books Electronic resources And the giant human search engine – Mrs E!

Print Resources are Generally reliable You can check an author’s credentials Bibliography useful for further exploration Currency – don’t forget to check. It can take a while to write, edit then publish a book. It may have gone into many editions – do you have the latest?

Books Get hold of reviews and abstracts These can often provide an overview and bibliographic material A review is someone else’s opinion of the work An abstract is a résumé of the contents They can help you decide if the book will be useful

Journals What are they? Magazines written for an academic audience Up to date Peer reviewed

How to access print resources You can borrow books from: The School Library Departmental Libraries The British Library (via school) The Public Library You may be able to read books at York University Library

ERY Libraries information/ information/ Via your membership you have access to: Encyclopedia Britannica and Britannica Student Know UK and News UK Oxford Reference Online Oxford Art Online Oxford Music Online and many others

Subscription Databases School has access to paid for databases: Student Infotrac Issues Online Heinemann Worldbook Online History Today The Economist Greece and Rome

Search Tip Start on paper -What do you already know? -Where are the gaps in your knowledge? -Think of keywords and phrases -Use more than one example to widen your search -What kind of search engines are you going to use?

The Web There is too much information out there! Books Newspapers and Journals Audio visual Websites

Searching You need to use specialist tools: Search engines – for comprehensive researching Meta search engines – less precise, but present findings in different ways Subject portals Subject directories

Subject Directories and Portals Contents arranged by subject area, subject catalogue Selected, annotated and maintained by specialists Good for initial use if searching a general topic with broad keywords and phrases Quick access to best sites Fewer results, possible currency issues

Use the Search Tools Boolean operators: AND OR and NOT - you can access these via the Advanced Search options as well as date restrictions, field keywords etc. Treat “words as phrases” for precision Use a ~ (tilde) to search for synonyms Search in lower case unless looking for names Mine your results, exploit new keywords/phrases

The Free Web Using search engines, meta search engines we can access most of the free web Examples of search engines: – – Check out the Search Me tutorial: / Examples of meta search engines:

The Invisible Web It has been estimated that it is possibly 800 times bigger than the free web (source: about.com It is the largest and most important part of the web The usual search tools will not help It comprises intranets, password coded collections and databases

Databases Organised, searchable collection of materials Filtered and evaluated by publishers, authors etc. Invisible to robots, spiders and crawlers OPACs Online Public Access Catalogue Can be accessed from anywhere Examples, British Library, University and Public Libraries Search by author, title, keyword

Search Tip Use subject headings on catalogue entries to find more resources Original Search “bovine tb”

Have a look at The Librarian Internet Index: The invisible web directory: eep_Web_Find_Out_More_About_The_Deep_Web_ Deep_Web_Search.htm

Ask an Expert These sites really work – there are experts who will come back to you with answers! Recommended sites: allexperts.com allexperts.com This site claims to have answered a million questions, which can make searching through the archives a challenge. Its experts are volunteers and include lawyers, doctors, engineers and scientists. Advice is free; most questions are turned around within a day. Ask A Mad Scientist Despite the frivolous name, and some horrible design, the question section at madsci.org is free and informative. With 36,000 questions answered by the 800 scientists on its books, it’s hard to think of something they haven’t already figured out. madsci.org Peake, Mike. "The 10 Best 'Ask an Expert' Websites." Times 31 Jan 2010, Print.

Evaluate your Sources Are they -CREDIBLE check credentials of sites, authors, web addresses ACCURATE compare sources RELIABLE what is the aim of the site? Check for bias RELEVANT quality not quantity. Does it answer the question? Use the URL address extensions to check the type of site:.com or.co.uk.edu or.ac or.sch.gov or.gov.uk.org %~

Academic Fraud What is it? Stealing other people’s work or ideas Copying from a friend Buying from the internet Help from others Cut and paste without attribution

I didn’t mean to do it... The information really did come from a book but I can’t remember which one I can’t express it any better than the website did, but I changed a few words My Mum wrote the summary because I was running out of time I reused a piece of work I did last year – well it is my own work

How to avoid it Credit facts and ideas Be organised – keep a record of all the resources you use Ensure all quotations are in “quotation marks” Paraphrase Summarise/minimise

Clearly identify your sources – make a bibliography King Edward VI School, Southampton has a great page explaining the hows and whys of referencing – why should Mrs E reinvent that wheel?

How to knock our socks off The bibliography is potentially the most time- consuming part of your work Don’t let it be Use citation machines – simply fill in the boxes Remember, it doesn’t matter which system you use – APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago – as long as you are consistent

Even Easier! Use the referencing tool in Word –bet you didn’t even know it existed Click on the References tab at the top of the page Choose your style Fill in the boxes for your in-text referencing Press the Bibliography tab to have the correct format on your Bib. Page Come and see Mrs E for a quick tutorial

THE END And just to make sure I haven’t plagiarised: This presentation is based on work done by Jane Whitelaw, Heckmondwike Grammar School A.J. Edwards May 2011