1. Research in the Digital Age May 2011

2. What frustrates students conducting research? Information overload Too much irrelevant information, can’t locate what is needed from online results Trying to find the “perfect source” Not knowing what to look for, yet still sifting through articles that might fit Too many results from a Google search and the need to sort through them Knowing the “answer” is online, but not being able to find it Figuring out what is a credible source, and what is not Figuring out if something is up to date Once a great source is found online, how is it found again when it is needed? Adapted from Project Information Literacy Progress Report, “ What College Students say about Conducting Research in the Digital Age” February 2009

3. Wikipedia Provides background and brief overview Identifies and defines search terms that students can use when they search List citations at the bottom that serve as a jumping-off point for using more scholarly research databases Often includes timelines and charts that help with visual learning Easily understood Provides fairly current, up-to- date information Interface is usable (e.g., links are highlighted, entries are short) Open-sourced functionality allows for updates and changes that can increase the authority and accuracy of information Adapted from Project Information Literacy Progress Report, “ What College Students say about Conducting Research in the Digital Age” February 2009

4. Boolean Operators TermDescription AND Limits your search to only those documents that contain both terms, in any order. For example, death AND penalty OR Searches for all instances of either term in documents. For example, death OR penalty NOT Eliminates terms from your search so that documents containing the term will not be listed. For example, death AND penalty NOT animals " " Groups words together and searches for them as phrases in a document. For example, "death penalty" [ ] Nesting search terms allows for greater flexibility in combining operators. For example, ["death penalty" AND "supreme court"] NOT animals + A plus sign ("+") before each term ensures that each term will be searched for. For example, +death +penalty - The minus sign ("-") will exclude terms from the search. For example, +death -penalty *, ? Asterisks ("*") or question marks ("?") allow for "wild card" searching, that is, searches that include all forms of a word or all types of a file. For example, to search for documents that contain the word "penalty" as well as the plural form, "penalties," use penalt* or penalt? (depending on the database). http://personal.georgiasouthern.edu/~jwalker/research/

5. There’s more than ?

6. Primary Sources What are Primary Sources? 100 Terrific Sites to Find Primary Source History Documents Using Primary Sources on the Web Duke University - How to Find Primary Sources

7. Michigan eLibrary (MeL)

8. Follow-up Workshop Tuesday, May 17 7-8 AM; Room 311 3:35-4:35PM; Room 106 Evaluating Online Content Based on Alan November's "Teaching Zack to Think" presentation, this session will help you and your students evaluate online content. It will cover the topics of decoding web addresses, locating the owners of web sites, finding out who links to a web site, viewing sites with different versions of the "truth", and much more. Come learn the grammar of the Internet.