Research presentation for teens (1)

Introduction to

ResearchLaura Wright

Nicolette Warisse Sosulski

The Search

You are going to be looking for information all

over. The web has a lot of great information

and has revolutionized the task of the

academic project. But beware…

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

So what would you check

• Who is authoring the site? Do they have authority in the area

• What are they saying? What other sources say the same thing? Does anybody else say the same thing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_bombing_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China_embassy_in_Belgrade

• Where is it affiliated—university, agency, etc.?

• When was the website last updated

• Why would the author say what (s)he does

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_bombing_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China_embassy_in_Belgrade



Librarian Tricks of the Trade

Boolean Limits: And Or Not

People wholike Dogs

People wholike Cats

People wholike both

People who do not like either(Hamster People, Ferret People,Bird People, Critter Haters, etc.)


Boolean Limits:

AND:

Just the Orange—Both have to be true

People wholike Dogs

People wholike Cats

People wholike both

People who do not like either


Boolean Limits:

OR:

Pink, Orange, Yellow—Either or both true

Remember: OR yields MORE!

People wholike Dogs

People wholike Cats

People wholike both

People who do not like either


Boolean Limits:

NOT:

Just Pink, or Just Yellow

People wholike Dogs but

not Cats

People wholike Cats but

not Dogs

NOT is underused but extremely usefulFor example when one is looking up articles on the Defense industry in March,

one can use Defense NOT Basketball


Truncation and Wildcards

To Truncate: to Shorten

CIA Operations OR CIA Operatives

Can be shortened to common root combination

of letters

CIA Operat*


Truncation and Wildcards

Wildcards

Just like in poker but in searching

usually replaced by an asterisk *

So once truncated, if you add the wildcard

Operat* will find Operative(s), Operation(s),

Operate(s)

Librarian Tricks of the TradeQuotation Marks

Used to narrow search so that only what is in between the marks only in that order is retrieved

Lions and Tigers and Bears

Retrieved 8,860,000 on June 28, 2010 at 9:21 a.m.

“Lions and Tigers and Bears:Retrieved 142,000 on June 28, 2010 at 9:21 a.m.

Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs. --Pearl Strachan

Words That Find You Stuff

It is all about the words you use—on Google, in

the index in the back of the book, in the

Yellow Pages, and in those collections of

articles called Databases that your teachers

and I want you to start using.



IMPACT

Finds answers to questions like

• Why was this important?

• What was the significance (also itself a good word)?

• What were the results of this?

• What did this cause to happen?



DEMOGRAPHICS


• What are people there like

• What languages do they speak in

• How many people were from this place versus

that one



STATISTICS


• How many people– Lived

– Died

– Were infected

– Eat McDonalds

• How many times– Babe Ruth struck out

– It rained in January in Seattle



TIMELINE


• Give me examples of something during this decade/century

• Give me steps to how this developed, e.g the computer

• I need 5 significant events

• I need 4 major battles

• I need 8 influential works of art



HISTORY

• Finds answers to questions like

• Who was the first?

• What were times like back then?

• How did this start?

• What was the original_____?

That's right. When I was your age, television was called books!

Peter Falk (Grandpa)

Books:

• You may still need to go for books for

• Quotes

• In-depth analysis of a particular historical

event, including battle maps

• Factoids about somebody’s life (what were

they like as a kid)

• Literary analysis

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.“

--Mark Twain

• Datasets (like the census)

When you have to find out how many people of

a certain age or ethnicity are in a particular

geographic region, or how many people

responded to a question with the answer A.

Sources that your teachers will get geeked about

• White PapersA white paper (or "whitepaper") is an authoritative report or guide that often addresses issues and how to solve them. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions. They are often used in politics, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to documents used by businesses as a marketing or sales tool.

•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_paper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_paper


• Conference Papers—Academic and or

professional, and so useful, but not peer

reviewed unless they appear in a peer

reviewed journal. Often the first offshoot of a

new area of research.


• Government Informational Web Pages—this can be where the studies funded by your taxes first appear, as well as cool charts and graphs. In almost all cases the URL of the web page they appear on should end in .gov. Excellent examples are the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov ), the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov ), the National Institutes of Health (www.nih.gov ), and the Center for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov ).Hint: when searching for things on these sites, try both searching using the site search function or searching in Google with NIH or CDC in the search string, for example.

http://www.bls.gov/

http://www.loc.gov/

http://www.nih.gov/

http://www.cdc.gov/


• Journal Articles (found in print journals or databases)

The be-all, end-all articles for many assignments are the articles from peer reviewed journals, also called refereed journals. What that means is that articles cannot appear in these journals unless a panel or group of people knowledgeable in that field agree that the research contained is valid, authoritative, and contributes to the field of knowledge.


• Journal Articles can also be trade or professional journals—non-academic but aimed at professionals in the field—business journals, technical and trade journals, etc. These are authoritative, specialized, but not what your teacher is talking about when (s)he says “peer-reviewed.”


• Journal Articles can also come from general news sources. In this case they are a good index of what may be being discussed or talked about, or may function as a primary source, but they are not what you are looking for for “academic”, “peer reviewed” or “authoritative.”

So where do you get those journal articles?

• Databases: Online Collections of articles that

you can either access from home with your id,

with a MeL library card, or in a library. This

is what you will be using heavily.

So where do you get those journal articles?

Go to www.portagelibrary.info

and select the catalog

Click on Article Search

Arrive at the screen where you can either select

a database or search for journals in the library

e-collection

http://www.portagelibrary.info/

So your teacher gave you a weird, hard, or IB topic and the PDL has nothing…

Waldo Library at Western Michigan University

So your teacher gave you a weird, hard, or IB topic and the PDL has nothing…

Google Scholar www.scholar.google.com has

only academic sources and patents. You get

the citation for the article that you want, and

then look back to the library web page’s

journal listing.

http://www.scholar.google.com/

And some hints about the catalog…

Always Use Click Here for More Options

When crafting your search, stay away from Subject as a first try. It is too library classification specific. Use General keyword instead, which will look everywhere in the book record

And some hints about the catalog…

Find JUST ONE good book

on your subject and you

might be golden, because

you can then use the subject

heading that the library has

stuck the books under. Then

you can find more.

OMG! Those Citations

Citing properly can drive you to distraction. Here are some places that will help you properly format, whether you are using U Chicago, APA, MLA, or some other style:

• The Purdue Online Writing Lab: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ Look to the right for the formatting and style guides

• Diana Hacker http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/

• Knight Cite http://www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/• SIRS and other databases on your library web pages

also have citation guides.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/

http://www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/

Research presentation for teens (1)

Education

Transcript of Research presentation for teens (1)