Gathering Information Information Collection: Garbage In – Garbage Out.
-
Upload
santino-means -
Category
Documents
-
view
246 -
download
4
Transcript of Gathering Information Information Collection: Garbage In – Garbage Out.
Where will I find the best information?
• Libraries – public, university, private, specialty• Internet – Believe or not – not all information
is on the internet• Personal acquaintance – if you do not have
them seek them out• Specialty associations and museums – • Businesses• Government other Non-Profits -
Start with Questions
• What are the key sources – Government? Academic? Non-Profits? Business? Etc.
• What are the major issues and debates?• What are the key theories, concepts, and
ideas?• What are the key positions taken?• What are the main questions and problems
that have been addressed?
Who?
• Who are the key players – the researchers, writers, knowledge workers?
• Who are the people that are innovative and perhaps less well known?
• Who are the ones applying the knowledge –• Where are the communities – in associations,
gathered around a journal, on the social pages of the internet?
Cover the Environments
• Social• Political• Religious• Economic• Technological• Scientific• Consider how each discipline approaches the
problem or topic and where the information is housed.
Organizing as You Go
• Is your information analysis or synthesis?– Analysis (select, dissect, differentiate)– Synthesis (integrate, reorganize, combine)
• What are the analogies, metaphors used to present ideas?
• What are the key definitions• What are the comparisons and contrasts
contained within the information?
Classification
Sorting and organizing things such as ideas, into categories and labeling those categories to
reduce information into manageable elements.
Matrix maps, feature maps, tree constructions, and concept maps are a few of the mapping
techniques available for managing your information.
Models for Information Gathering
• Subject specific, or discipline model• The classification scheme – Library of
Congress or Dewey Decimal Classification• Vocabulary controlled catalogue – the old card
catalogue, now database based• Published bibliographies and indexes• The METHODS OF SEACRCH MODEL – which
includes the best features of them all
The Methods-of-Search Model
• 1. Controlled-vocabulary searches in manual or printed sources.
• 2. Key word searches in manual or printed sources.
• 3. Citation searches in printed sources.• 4. Searches through published biographies
(including sets of foot-notes in relevant subject documents – foot note chasing).
• 5. Searches through people sources (whether by verbal contact, e-mail, electronic bulliten board, letters, etc.)
• 6. Computer searches - subject heading, classification number, key word, or citation, adds the possibilities of postcoordinate Boolean combinations for more precise searching.
• 7. Related-record searches in multiple databases.
• 8. Systematic browsing of full-text sources arranged in predictable subject groupings.
“More than any other model, it permits researchers to achieve a sense of “closure” in their research by enabling them to see the full range of search options available to them, and to see which avenue remain to be explored if their first attempts do not yield satisfactory
results.”