MAIN OBJECTIVE
• The main objective of this
tutorial is to teach you how
to conduct a library search
• Through this tutorial, you will
gain basic information literacy
skills
This Tutorial covers:
• HOW TO DO THE PRELIMINARY
PREPARATION
• HOW TO SELECT THE RIGHT ERESOURCE(S)
• ADVANCED SEARCH TECHNIQUES
• HOW TO EVALUATE THE SEARCH
RESULTS
• HOW TO CITE THE USED
MATERIALS
Preliminary Preparation
means:
• Choosing your topic
• Defining your requirements
• Finding background information
• Refining your topic, if needed
Choosing your topic
• Sometimes choosing a topic is the
biggest hurdle in doing research
• Begin with:
 Remembering your course
readings/class discussions
 Reviewing current periodicals
 Checking reference sources
What are your information
requirements?
• Analyse your assignment to determine the
type, quantity and format of information you will
need
• Try to answer the following questions:
 What kind of assignment do you have to complete?
 How much time do you have to complete your
research?
 How much information do you need?
 What types of publications do you need?
Finding Background
Information
• Before using e-resources,
locate and read short
articles that will give you a
broad overview of the topic
• These articles can be
found in encyclopedias,
dictionaries, almanacs,
etc., which are also called
reference sources
Source: McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia
of Sci. & Tech.
General Encyclopedias &
Dictionaries (1)
• Encyclopedias are sets of books
containing articles on various topics
covering all branches of knowledge
• Dictionaries are books giving information
on particular subjects or on a particular
class of words, names, or facts
General Encyclopedias &
Dictionaries (2)
• They direct you to more specific
sources
• To locate them in the Library, do a
subject heading search for
“encyclopedias and dictionaries” in
the Library catalog
• Examples: Encyclopedia Americana,
Encyclopedia Britannica
General Encyclopedias &
Dictionaries (3)
 To find them, go to the Library’s homepage and
do a subject heading search for “encyclopedias
and dictionaries” on the WebOPAC
Subject-Specific Encyclopedias
• Subject-specific encyclopedias provide detailed
articles written by experts in the given field. They
cover all aspects of one subject
• To locate them, do a subject heading search in
your area of interest
• For instance, “Economics encyclopedias” retrieves
5 different encyclopedias in the catalog
• Examples: Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics,
Mc-Graw Hill Encyclopedia of Economics
Almanacs
• Almanacs are annual reference books of
useful and interesting facts in different
areas
• To locate almanacs, do a subject heading
search for “almanacs” and select the
suitable one
• From this search you can find 8 different
almanacs
• Examples: Wall Street Journal Almanac,
World Almanac
Where are These Sources
Located in the Library?
• General encyclopedias, dictionaries
and almanacs are located in the
Atrium on the ground floor
• Subject-specific materials are
distributed to different floors by subject
(e.g Business Administration- 2nd floor).
Please check the call number
• If you encounter any problem, please
consult the reference librarian
responsible for the concerned
collection
HOW TO USE THESE SOURCES
MOST EFFECTIVELY?
• While reading the articles, take notes
of distinct and unique words to be
used as keywords in your query
• For every source that you are
interested in, write down the author,
title and publication information
• Locate the publications listed in the
bibliography at the end of the articles
Selecting
keywords/search terms
Topic: World War 2
Q: How did the World
War 2 influence
Japanese people?
Kw: World War 2,
Japan, Hiroshima
Topic : Attack at WTC
Q: What are the
effects of the
terrorist attack at
WTC on the US
economy?
Kw: World Trade
Center, September
11th, US economy
Narrowing a Topic
If your query retrieves too many hits:
• Use AND & NOT as operators
• Using AND between your search terms
means that both terms must appear
somewhere in the record
• Example: AIDS and South Africa
 It retrieves sources containing information
that pertains to AIDS in South Africa
Broadening a Topic
If your query retrieves very few or no hits:
• Use OR as operator
• OR enables you to enter other
keywords that may also be used to
describe your topic
Example: AIDS or HIV or acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome
• Using OR between your search terms
means that at least one of the terms
must appear in the record
Boolean Operators
AND & NOT:
Narrows a
search,
resulting in
fewer hits
Operator Example
Search
AND
TV and
Censorship
items
containing
"TV" and
"censorship"
OR:
OR
TV or movies
Broadens a
search,
resulting in
more hits
NOT
TV not movies
items
containing
either "TV"
or "movies"
or both
items
containing
"TV" but not
"movies"
The search
will find...
Venn
diagram
How to Select the Right
E-Resources
•
•
•
•
•
Selection of the right article database
depends on:
The subject area of your topic
The types of sources needed
Your level of knowledge of the topic
Date of publication of the articles needed
Format of the article (full text, full image,
abstract, etc.)
Subject Area of your Topic (1)
• Which subject area is appropriate for
your topic?
Topic
Focus
Narrower
focus
Subject
Area
Database
Drugs
Drug abuse
and genetic
factors
Gene &
environment
correlation
Medicine
Medline(Abstracts)
Drugs
Drug Education
Peer pressure
and drugs
Psychology
PsycInfo (Abstracts)
Drugs
Drugs and
Employment
Economic
effects of
addicted
employees
Business
ABI/Inform(Proquest)
(Full image&Abstracts)
BSP(Ebscohost)
(Full image&Abstracts)
Subject Area of your Topic (2)
• Once you have determined which
subject area is appropriate for your
topic, look at the list of 31 online
databases available at
http://www.library.ku.edu.tr/searchonline-database.shtml
• The list has been organised
alphabetically as well as by subject
• Short descriptions and user manuals of
these databases are provided by the
vendors from databases’ websites
Types of Sources Needed
There are three types of databases:
1.
2.
3.
General Interest / News Article
Databases
Discipline-Based Article Databases
Subject-Specific Article Databases
General Interest/News
Article Databases
They contain a mixture of popular
magazines, daily newspapers and fewer
scholarly journals
Examples:
 Facts on File (EBSCOhost) (Information)
 Newspaper Source (EBSCOhost) (Full
Image)
Discipline-Based Article
Databases
They cover the subject fields within
the disciplines of Science, Arts &
Humanities or Social Sciences
Examples:
 Institute of Physics Publications(IoPP)
 Business Source Premier
(EBSCOhost) (Full Image & Abstracts)
Subject-Specific Article
Databases
They cover a specific subject area and
have highly scholarly coverage
Examples:
 ERIC (Education and related disciplines)
 Engineering Village – 2 (Engineering)
 PsycINFO (Psychology and related
disciplines)
Dates of Publication of
the Articles
• Most online article databases began in
the early 1980’s
• If you are doing a retrospective/deep
literature search, some of these
databases will be of limited help
• However, PsycINFO for example, has
been indexing since 1887
• JSTOR provides complete backsets
for covered journals from the first
issue published until the last 3-5 years
Level of Knowledge of the
Topic
If you are new to your topic:
 Look for articles in easy-to-understand
language. Those found in general interest
databases use common terms
 Articles in discipline-based databases usually
have less jargon
 Articles in subject-specific databases assume
that users have some background knowledge
of the subject and often use special language
Hints for Searching
• If your search terms do not return enough
hits, try using Boolean operators with
other terms
• Use complete and specific words for your
search
• Always check your spelling
• Use synonyms in your search to find
articles on the same subject using
different terminology
Advanced Search Techniques
Adjacency Operators
OPERATOR
EXAMPLE
WHAT IT FINDS
WITHIN
Education
W/5
Internet
One word must be within a specified number
of words of another word.
NOT WITHIN
Mississippi
NOT W/3 OF
RIVER
One word must NOT be within a specified
number of words of another word.
PRECEDED BY
European
PRE/2
Community
One word must precede another word by a
specified number of words
WITHIN DOC
Basketball
W/DOC
Michael
Jordan
Two Words must appear in the same article
Combining Boolean Operators
and Adjacency Operators
Operators
Example
What It Finds
OR and WITHIN
Trend w/5 (Internet
OR Web)
Articles on Internet trends and web
trends.Using OR will broaden the
search, but using WITHIN limits the
search
AND NOT and
WITHIN DOC
Java AND NOT coffee
W/DOC Sun
Articles about Sun's Java technology,
but not articles on growing coffee. Using
AND NOT and using Within Doc both
limit the search.
OR and
PRECEDED BY
Military policy PRE/1
(U.S. OR American)
Articles covering US military policy as
well as articles referring to American
military policy.
AND and NOT WITHIN
Herniated disc AND
spinal cord NOT W/5
lumbar
Articles about spinal cords AND
herniated disks in the cervical and
thoracic regions of the spine, but not the
lumbar region.
Truncation
• Use the truncation character ? to find
articles containing several words with the
same root
Example: Type educat? to find "educator“,
"educators“, "educated“, "educating“,
"education“, and "educational”
Wildcard Character
• Use the wildcard character * in the
place of characters in your search
terms, when more than one letter is
likely to fit that space
Example :Type educat** to find articles
containing "educator" and "educated."
Note: This search will not find "education",
which follows "educat” with four letters
rather than two
Nesting
Nesting enables you to combine several
search statements into one search. Use
parentheses to clarify the relationship
between the combined search terms.
E.g. Architecture and (Istanbul or
Constantinople)
combines “architecture” with either
“Istanbul” or “Constantinople”
Evaluation of the Search
Results
Criteria to consider when evaluating the
search results are:
• Quantity
• Diversity (Variety)
• Date of Publication
• Quality and Reliability
• Additional Resources
Quantity & Diversity
Quantity
Enough resources are
needed to:
• Support your argument
• Include a variety
of viewpoints and
materials
Diversity
Include many different resources
• Primary Sources
Contemporary accounts of an event
and original documents
Examples: letters, newspaper articles
• Secondary Resources
Retrospective sources based on
primary resources; include scientific or
scholarly analysis
Examples: books, editorials
Quality and Reliability
Some factors to think about when
assessing the quality and reliability of a
publication are:
•
•
•
•
•
What is the tone?
Who is the intended audience?
What is the purpose of the publication?
What assumptions does the author make?
Does the content agree with what you know
or have learned about the issue?
Additional Resources
Does the source provide other leads?
Documentation (i.e. footnotes and
bibliography)
•
•
Provides additional resources
Substantiates the author's research
Evaluating Web Pages
When evaluating web pages, check
these issues:
 Authority (Who wrote/maintains the
page?)
 Purpose/intended audience
 Currency of the data
 Objectivity vs. Bias
 Support
Web Page Checklist (1)
Authority
• Look for the author’s name or a copyright
credit () or link to an organization
• Look for bibliographic information about the
author
• Look at the domain name(.comcommercial, .edu-education, .govgovernment, .org-organization etc)
• (~) means a personal site
(www.home.ku.edu.tr/~ayilmaz.html)
• Look for contact information
Web Page Checklist (2)
Purpose / Intended Audience
• What is the purpose of the page?
• Who is the target audience?
Currency
• Is the information up-to-date?
• To find whether the web page is up-to-date,
one way is to click on ”View” then “Page
Info” in Netscape for “Last modified”
information
• Is the author being objective or biased?
Web Page Checklist (3)
Support
• Does the author support the
information that s/he uses?
• Is the support respectable?
• If checking support is hard to make,
be suspicious!
Comparison of the
Contemporary Materials
You can also find what you are looking
for in these contemporary materials:
 Scholarly Journals
 Substantial News General
Interest Periodicals
 Popular Magazines
Scholarly Journals
• Articles in scholarly journals are written
by scholars or researchers in the field,
discipline or speciality
• Purpose is to inform, report or make
available original research
• Published by professional organizations
Examples: Harvard Business Review
American Journal of Sociology
Substantial News General
Interest Periodicals
• They are written for an educated,
general audience either by the
magazine’s staff, a scholar or free-lance
writer
• They provide general information to a
wide, interested audience
• Published by commercial enterprises for
profit
Examples: Fortune,Time
Popular Magazines
• Written by the publication’s staff or
free-lance writers for a broad based
audience
• Designed to entertain or persuade
people
• Published for profit
Examples: Reader’s Digest
Sports Illustrated
How to Cite the Used
Materials?
• Copying and paraphrasing statements
from a source and using them without
proper use of quotation and citation is
plagiarism
• Proper citation is important to avoid
plagiarism and to give author’s credit for
their work
• There are two commonly used style
formats, APA and MLA style formats
APA Style
• Established by the American Psychological
Association
• Preferred by most of the disciplines in the social
sciences
Example:
Book by Two or More Authors
Cone, J. D., & Foster, S. L. (1993). Dissertations
and theses from start to finish: Psychology and
related fields. Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
• To learn how to cite other types of sources, look
at www.apastyle.org
MLA Style
• Established by the Modern Language
Association
• Preferred by most of the disciplines in the
humanities
Example:
Book by Two or More Authors
Cone, John D., and Sharon L. Foster.
Dissertations and Theses from Start to Finish:
Psychology and Related Fields. Washington,
DC: American Psychological Association, 1993.
• For other other types of sources look at
www.mla.org
Please feel free to consult Reference
librarians at any stage of your research
for further help.
THANK YOU