ENG 102

Finding Information

Martin J. CrabtreeMCCC Library

Agenda

• The College’s Card Catalog• Electronic Searching

– Keywords & Boolean Searching

• Electronic Databases at Mercer– Accessing & Using the databases

• Database Info ≠ Web Info• Searching the web• MLA resources – giving credit to the

author

Using The 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)

• Link to the catalog is on the library’s web pages.

The link to the catalog is on the library’s web pages.

Searching Electronic Databases

And The Web Too

Starting An Electronic SearchKeywords

• Keywords are used when searching electronic databases and web search engines

• First step - Generate a list of words (keywords) 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– “survival of the fittest”

• Truncations allow for searching related words all at once– The * is usually used (! For Lexis-Nexis) .

For example:• “child*” would include: child, children,

childhood, childproof, etc.

Searching More Than Just Keywords

Field Limiters• Field limiters allow you to specify

your search within varied parameters for example:– Only full-text articles– Only peer reviewed (scholarly)

publications– Date (or date range)

Let’s take a quick look at how Boolean searching can help

Electronic Databases at the Mercer Library

Electronic DatabasesIn General

• Over 60 databases available• Not every article is available full text

though many are• Abstracts (summary) is often

available when full text is not

Electronic DatabasesIn General

• Accessible at any computer on the MCCC/JKC campus network

• Most are available off campus, though you do need to use a password.

• Can print/e-mail/download articles

Accessing Databases Remotely

• You can access most of the databases from any computer with internet access.

• Use your student ID number (no dashes) and your last name to log into the databases. i.e.

• Old library issued password and ID numbers are no longer valid.

Remote Login Screen

Use your student ID number & last name

Some Useful Databases• Academic Search Premier (EBSCOHost)

– Broadest of the databases covering everything from science to the humanities including many scholarly journals

– Not every article full text– Need Acrobat Reader for some articles

• Literature Resource Center - Reviews, criticisms, and biographical info on a number of authors and their works.

More Databases• A number of subject specific databases

are available covering:– Business (ABI/Inform)– Newspapers (Academic-Universe: News)– Social Science (Proquest Social Science Journals)– Architecture (Architectural Index)– Education (Proquest Educational Journals)– more

• Also other resources– Encyclopedia Britannica– Oxford English Dictionary– AP Photo Archive – News & historical photographs

Database info vs. web info

Is this stuff any

good?

What is a databases?

• A collection of electronically searchable information (frequently, but not limited to, periodical articles) that is accessible via the internet

• Access to this information is by paid subscription only (paid by the library).

• It is accessible via the internet, but it is not truly web information.

Database info ≠ Webpage info

• Though both use a browser (like Netscape or Explorer) the information is not the same.

• Database info comes from known sources of information such as Newsweek or The New York Times.

• Web information can be put up by anyone hence the quality of this information varies greatly from site to site.

Database info ≠ Webpage info

• Accuracy: Editors & fact checkers insure this for periodicals, can’t tell if it’s done for many websites.

• Authority: Articles are written by experts or people who have researched a subject, with web info it can be hard to tell if the writer is an expert.

• Objectivity: Periodicals strive to give an unbiased presentation of information, some websites can be very opinionated

Database info ≠ Webpage info

• Currency: Periodicals always have a given date (i.e. Spring 2002, January 2005), often you can’t tell how old web info is.

• Coverage: Periodical articles, especially journals cover their subject thoroughly, web info tends to be abbreviated (20 page journal articles are common, 20 page web pages are not).

Searching the World Wide Web

How can I find what I want?

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:– Use keywords and Boolean logic (and, not, or) to

better define your search, use double quotes for phrases, etc.

• When searching the web, also consider:– Different search engines yield different results.

You may want to try using more that just your “regular” search engine

– Use the search engine’s “advanced search” to select limiting parameters (language, date, domain, etc.)

Searching the World Wide Web Search Engines & Meta Sites

• Become familiar with your search engines features:– http://www.infopeople.org/search/chart.html– http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/– http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/

Internet/SearchEngines.html

• Meta search sites (like Dogpile):– Allow you to search more than one search engines

at once.– Can generate more “stuff” to sift through– Limited to only basic searches, can’t use advanced

search features– Some results can be from “paid for listing” search

engines

Sample Web Search• Search engines prioritize your results• Topic - Censorship in the field of

Radio, NOT Television– Try search in:

• Google (note Google’s “cached” feature)• Altavista

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 is 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.

Plagiarism when paraphrasing or writing a

summary• Incomplete paraphrasing or summarizing another’s work could cause plagiarizing without your realizing it.

• To prevent this, you should avoid: Using the original sentence structure. Simply substituting a few words here and

there. Using any of the author's key words or

unusual words.

• Let’s look at an example...

Good paraphrasing

• It takes some effort to do a good job of paraphrasing.

• One helpful method is to: 1. Read the original sentence

2. Without looking at the sentence, try writing the idea of the sentence in your own words

3. Look back at the original sentence again to see it you haven’t used too much of the original language

-Adapted from “Avoiding Plagiarism”, at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia webpage: http://www.usip.edu/writing/plagrsm.shtml

Using the MLA format

• You will be using the MLA (Modern Language Association of America) style.

• The latest MLA manual is available in the library: – MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers

at: LB 2369 .G53 2003 (in the reference collection & on reserve).

• The manual is not available on line.

Added MLA info is at the Research & Report Guides link

Now it’s your turn…