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BECOME A POW!er SEARCHER: RIGHT TOOLS

Intro

Information comes in many ways. To search efficiently and be able to answer your research needs you must know what is available and understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Resources

ENCYCLOPEDIAS

. Good for an overview of your topic or for the historical perspective on a topic.
. Online encyclopedias (like Britannica and Universalis) are updated regularly and often provide links to external sources.
. Check our LibGuide on Wikipedia here.

 

NON FICTION BOOKS or informational books

. Written by experts in their fields
. Not updated regularly.
. Less contestable
. Usually more in-depth.

MAGAZINES & NEWSPAPERS (see also box on the right)

. Good for current events and general information.
. The library subscribes to PressReader for its digital international magazines and newspapers. Check the "Databases" page.
. For research purposes, use our databases and get access to hundreds of full-text articles.

ONLINE DATABASES

Our databases provide access to the full text of hundreds of magazines and academic journals as well as the full text of selected general and subject-specific reference works. Databases are more reliable than the Internet.

INTERNET

. The internet is powerful if you know how to search it and frustrating if you don’t.
. Make sure you check the Web Site Evaluation section of this site.
. There are good online tutorials, or come see me for a short one-on-one session.

INTERVIEWS

Field experts can offer a wealth of information. An interview gives you the chance to ask the questions that matter to you and be up-to-date with the topic at hand.

And don't forget community resources:

Associations and organisations, government agencies, universities and colleges, city halls

There are other types of information as well:

Documentaries, surveys, statistics, studies, music, plays

Databases vs The Internet

DATABASES
A database is an organized body of information, a set of controlled and related data.

  • Databases are efficient and convenient.
  • The information is controlled, structured and reliable.
  • The information often comes from renowned reference companies such as Gale, EBSCO, Wilson, etc.
  • Online databases are updated regularly.
  • There are different types of databases:Textual, Graphical, Numerical, Audio, Mixed/Multimedia

THE INTERNET

  • Great tool. Great for browsing. Can be greatly frustrating too. 
  • Reliability is a major issue. You must evaluate your results carefully.
  • The internet is not as free as it appears to be.  A lot of the relevant information you need is proprietary information and is accessible at a cost. 

 

SEARCH ENGINES 

  • Automated programs, called web robots, spiders, worms, crawlers search and index web sites.
  • Search for words found in the title, URL, introductory paragraphs, or full-text of documents of all web sites indexed by the search engine.
  • Examples of popular search engines include Google, Yahoo and Bing.
  • The value of search engines:

            1. Access to huge amount of information.
            2. Allow full-text searching.

         (Adapted from: Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries )
 

     The triumvirate of search engines. 

     . Google    Yahoo!    Bing (MSN)  are basically the unique search engines out there.

     The others, like DuckDuckGo, StartPage, etc. "borrow" their searchware, index or results from them. 

Journals vs. Magazines

       

JOURNAL = Scholarly, professional, peer-reviewed academic publication
MAGAZINE = Popular publication

MAGAZINES JOURNALS

. Authors are typically generalists 

. Provide overview of topic

. Cover several topics of general interest 

. Focus is on secondary writing

. Short articles 

. Familiar language

. Articles reviewed by an editor


. Written by field or discipline experts

. Provide deep analysis of topic

. Specialized
 

. Will typically publish primary sources/research

. Longer articles

. Scholarly/specialized language

. Articles are often peered reviewed (refereed by several experts)