ENG 101
Using the library & finding
information
Martin Crabtree
MCCC Library
Agenda
• Finding books
• Important places in the library
• Electronic searching
• Databases available fro the library
• Using web information
– Finding things on the web
– Deciding if what you find is any good
• Giving credit to the author
Finding Books
• Books are put on the shelves grouped
by subject.
• You may be familiar with the Dewey
Decimal System which is used by
many school and public libraries.
• MCCC like most colleges uses a
different system called the Library of
Congress (LC) system.
• The LC system used both letters and
number. For example:
PZ3.D55 T3
Finding books in the library
Using the online card catalog
•
The catalog is available
online. Used to find books,
videos and other materials
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)
•
You will need to have your
student ID card to borrow
books or use the computer
lab in the library
Link to the catalog is on the library’s web pages.
Getting Around in the Library
Important Places in the Library
The Reference Desk
The Circulation Desk
The Stacks
The person at the reference desk will
help you find what you need
The Reference Librarian will help you to:
•Do database searches
•Find books, periodicals and other materials
•Find useful web resources
At the Circulation Desk
You can:
•
•
•
•
Check out book here.
Get textbook for use in the library
Get videos & current newspapers here.
Get materials (books, journal articles, etc.)
that your professor has set aside here
• Ask for help in your research
There are 2 kinds of stacks
• The Reference stacks:
– Holds the reference books
– These books do not
circulate
• The General Collection
Stacks
– Holds the books that you
can check out
We have computers too!
The library’s computer lab
• To use the computer lab you need to sign in
& have your student ID with you.
• You can use the computers for research as
well as for email, writing papers, spread
sheets, etc.
• Bring you own disks, CDs, thumb drives, etc.
to save your work.
The library’s computer lab
• Anything saved on a computer’s hard drive
will be erased once the computer is turned
off.
• Printing costs 10¢ a page (you can also email
articles to yourself).
• There is a lab assistant there to help with
computer usage questions.
• You’ll need to go to the reference desk for
research questions.
Searching Electronic Resources
Starting An Electronic Search
Keywords
• Keywords are used when searching electronic databases and
web search engines.
• With a possible topic in mind, generate a list of words
(keywords) that describes or would commonly be used when
discussing your topic. Write this down if it helps.
• 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
• Database 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.
• To log on to the databases, use your:
– student ID number (no dashes)
– your last name (include punctuation here)
Remote Login Screen
Use your student ID
number & last name
Academic Search Premier
• EBSCOhost - Academic Search Premier
– Broadest of the databases covering everything from science to
the humanities
– includes both general interest & scholarly/professional journals
– Not every article full text
– Need Acrobat Reader for some articles
More Databases
• A number of subject specific databases are
available covering:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Business (ABI/Inform)
Newspapers (Academic-Universe: News)
Criminal Justice (Criminal Justice Periodical Index)
Architecture (Architectural Index)
Education (Proquest Educational Journals)
more
• Also other resources
– Encyclopedia Britannica
– Oxford English Dictionary
– AP Photo Archive – News & historical photographs
Using the World Wide Web
Using the internet/world wide web
• Before using the web for most college
research, try using databases first:
– You will have fewer hits to go through
– You’ll likely find some good information quickly
– The information is always high quality
• The internet & web are not the same thing
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
at least 2 times bigger than the “visible” (or
surface) web.
Searching the World Wide Web
Search Strategy
• Searching the Web is much like database searching:
– Put together a list of keywords describing the information you
desire
– Use Boolean logic (and, not, or) to better define your search,
use double quotes for phrases, etc.
• When searching the web, also:
– Consider which search engines/sites may best suit your search
needs. Different search engines yield different results.
– Use the search engine’s advanced search to select limiting
parameters (language, date, domain, etc.)
A couple of urban legend sites
• Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/) – The
largest collection of urban legends and info as
to their truth (or untruth)
• Others exist as well:
– http://urbanlegends.about.com/
– http://purportal.com/ -allows searching a number
of sites beyond just urban legends
Is this stuff
any good?
Evaluating Web Sites
Evaluating Web Sites
• Quality varies greatly from site to site
• YOU are the sole evaluator of the
quality of information a site provides
Five Web Info Evaluation Criteria
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Accuracy - is it reliable?
Authority - is author qualified on subject?
Objectivity - is the information biased?
Currency - is the information “new” enough?
Coverage - does the info completely cover the
topic?
The Bottom Line…
Buyer Beware
• The web contains a vast amount of information…but
not everything
• Anyone can put information on the web, hence the
quality of web information varies greatly
• YOU will often be the only person to decide if the
quality of the info you find on the web is good
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 the actual
facts, conclusions, and
ideas that an author
presents.
• It also includes actual
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
Citing your sources
Citing your sources
• When you are presenting your research you
will need to give a list of your sources
• In order to make it easier for others to
understand what sources you have used (and
to possibly look at them themselves), specific
formats have been developed to standardize
this process
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 & APA info is at the
Research & Report Guides link
Now it’s your turn…