Transcript ENG 024 - Mercer County Community College

ENG 024
Finding Information
Martin J. Crabtree
MCCC Library
Agenda
• The College’s Card Catalog
• Electronic Searching
– Keywords & Boolean Searching
• Electronic Databases at Mercer
– Databases available through Mercer Library
– Accessing the databases
• Giving credit to your information sources
• A few things to consider when using the
web
Finding books in the library
The online card catalog
•
The catalog is available
online. Used to find books,
videos and other material
both in the MCCC
collection and the Mercer
County Public (MCL)
libraries.
•
You can have materials
from MCL brought to the
college. Deliveries arrive
Tuesday and Friday
afternoons. (DVD’s not
available from MCL)
•
You will need to have your
student ID card to borrow
books or use the computer
lab
Finding things in the library
Library of Congress system
• Unlike school and public libraries, the MCCC
uses the Library of Congress (LC) system.
• The LC is an alphanumeric system
– For example: PN 1991.2 .W65
• You can search for materials by:
–
–
–
–
Title
Author (last name first)
Subject
Keyword
Link to the catalog is on the library’s web pages.
Searching Electronic Databases
…and the web too
Starting An Electronic Search
Keywords
• Keywords are used when searching electronic
databases and web search engines
• First step - Generate a list of words (keywords) often
nouns that describes or is commonly used when
discussing your topic. For example:
– Ozone
– Layer
– Depletion
– Atmosphere
– Hole
Starting An Electronic Search
Boolean Searching/Logic
• Boolean searching - Connecting keywords with
the terms
– and
– not
– or
• For example
– eagles NOT football
– (car or automobile) and exhaust
• More Terms = Fewer “Hits”
Searching More Than Just Keywords
Phrases & Truncations
• To search for a phrase, use quotation
marks
– “weapons of mass destruction”
• Truncations allow for searching related
words all at once
– The * is usually used. For example:
• “child*” would include: child, children, childhood,
childproof, etc.
Let’s take a quick look at how
Boolean searching can help
Electronic Databases at the
Mercer Library
Electronic Databases at MCCC
In General
• Over 60 databases available
• Many contain periodical articles
• Some are useful for searching specific
subjects like business, art, or criminal
justice.
•Others are also useful
tools like the Encyclopedia
Britannica and the Oxford
Dictionary
Electronic Databases
In General
• Accessible at any computer
on the MCCC/JKC campus
network
• Most are available off
campus, need to request a
password.
• Can print/e-mail/download
articles
Broad/General Coverage Databases
• Academic Search Premier - EBSCOhost
– Broadest of the databases covering everything from
science to history
– Not every article full text
• Academic Universe (Lexis-Nexis) - News
– Large collection of newspaper information from around
the US, nearly all full text
• Issues & Controversies from Facts on File
– Contains information on controversial subjects in the
news
Let’s take a look a the
databases…
Using the information you find
...and giving credit where credit
is due.
Using the Information You Find
• Always give credit to the author or
creator of the information that you use.
• This includes not only the actual facts,
conclusions, and ideas that an author
presents but also the words that he/she
has used.
Plagiarism can take many forms
• Plagiarism, the presenting of someone else’s
intellectual work as your own.
• It may be done deliberately, but it may also be
done without your realizing it.
• The copying, word for word, from a book or an
article is the most blatant form of plagiarism.
• Changing a few words is still plagiarism!
Using the World Wide Web
Using the internet/world wide
web
• Before using the web for most college
research, try using databases first:
– You will have fewer hits to go through
– You’ll likely find some good information
quickly
– The information is always high quality
• The internet & web are not the same
thing
Some things to consider when
searching the web
• Everything is NOT on the web and may
never be
• No search engine covers the entire web
• The “invisible web” is huge!
• Though there has yet to be consensus,
estimates put the size of the invisible
web between 2 and 500 times bigger
than the “visible” (or surface) web.
Searching the World Wide Web
Search Strategy
• Searching the Web is much like database
searching:
– Put together a list of keywords describing the
information you desire
– Use Boolean logic (and, not, or) to better define your
search, use double quotes for phrases, etc.
• When searching the web, also:
– Consider which search engines/sites may best suit your
search needs. Different search engines yield different
results.
– Use the search engine’s “advanced search” to select
limiting parameters (language, date, domain, etc.)
Let’s pause for a bit for
some TV
Is this
stuff any
good?
Evaluating Web Sites
Evaluating Web Sites
• Quality varies greatly from site to
site
• YOU are the sole evaluator of the
quality of information a site
provides
Five Web Info Evaluation Criteria
1. Accuracy - is it reliable?
2. Authority - is author qualified on
subject?
3. Objectivity - is the information biased?
4. Currency - is the information “new”
enough?
5. Coverage - does the info completely
cover the topic?
The Bottom Line…
Buyer Beware
• The web contains a vast amount of
information…but not everything
• Anyone can put information on the web, hence the
quality of web information varies greatly
• YOU will often be the only person to decide if
the quality of the info you find on the web is good
The Bottom Line…
Buyer Beware
• The web contains a vast amount of
information…but not everything
• Anyone can put information on the web, hence the
quality of web information varies greatly
• YOU will often be the only person to decide if
the quality of the info you find on the web is good
Now let’s visit a site
go to:
www.malepregnacy.com