ENG 102
Finding Information
Martin J. Crabtree
MCCC Library
Agenda
• The College’s Card Catalog
• Electronic Searching
– Keywords & Boolean Searching
• Electronic Databases at Mercer
– Accessing & Using the databases
• Web information
• Giving credit to the author - MLA resources
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 Search
Keywords
• 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 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 Databases
In 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 Databases
In 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
Using Web Information
This part of the show is brought to
you by…
Brought to you by…
&
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.
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 at least twice as
big as 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/Searc
hEngines.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
Is this stuff
any good?
Database info vs. web info
Now Back to Our “Sponsors”
&
Evaluating Web Sites
• Quality varies greatly from site to site
• YOU are the sole evaluator of the
quality of information a site provides
Evaluating Web Info Quality
• 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
Evaluating Web Info Quality
• 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).
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…