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Introduction |
Suggestions on Search Strategy
| Evaluate Information
Introduction
This website is designed to give you information on a wealth
of resources to use for any environmental studies topics.
Since environmental studies in inherently interdisciplinary,
I have tried to be comprehensive.
Click on the links on the left to get to specific areas of
the guide.
- Find Articles offers a discussion
of the different kinds of article databases UIS has, how
to choose a database, how to phrase searches, and suggestions
on when to use a particular database.
- Find Books has information on
how to search our book catalog, and how to find books that
UIS doesn't own.
- Find Government Info covers
federal and state government information, both online and
in print
- Find Statistics offers an
overview of finding statistics, with more detailed discussion
of federal and state government tools.
- Find Websites offers suggestions
on some useful directories and search engines.
Suggestions on Search Strategy
There is no one correct way to do research. Everyone is going
to have his or her own methods and strategies. However, most
people start out with a vague idea, gather a lot of sources
and wade through them, trying to figure out exactly what topic
appeals most. Once they have narrowed down to something more
specific, they start again, using new terminology to find
more sources, wade through them, narrowing down what's useful
and what's not. And so on, until they decide on certain resources
that they then read in-depth. Resources are found through
a variety of methods: indexes, references from books or articles,
serendipity, whatever rises to the top of the search results,
etc.
Considering how the materials are arranged in the library,
here are my suggestions as to a framework for doing research.
- Brainstorm keywords
to describe your topic. Consider any qualifiers: time period,
geography, limitations on types of sources, etc.
- If you do not have any general or background information
on your topic, find some useful subject encyclopedia entries. Reading
an overview of your issue might help to narrow or broaden
your focus, and to come up with terminology. (We have a few online environmental encyclopedias that you could keyword search, as well as physical ones in the Reference Area.)
- Consider the kind of sources you want. In general, books
tend to be more (comprehensive) overviews of a subject, while articles tend
to be focused on a more specific, particular issue within a subject.
Consider whether you need scholarly or mainstream news sources.
Consider the timeliness of various sources. You aren't going
to find books or scholarly articles about really recent trends or an event that
took place last month.
- If you do not know what kind of sources you want, then
realize what the limitations are for each database, index,
encyclopedia, etc. that you use to find information.
- Write down your search strategy, what databases you used,
what keywords you used, etc. When you find an interesting
citation, note the words used in it, especially the subject
headings (if there are any). Think of as many synonyms for
your keywords as possible. What words could someone use
to describe your topic?
- When you do find relevant books or articles, note the
sources used by that author. You may start seeing a pattern,
where a particular author or book is frequently cited.
Evaluate Information
Your job in doing research is not simply finding information,
it's finding good information. What constitutes as "good"
is of course up to you. But to make this judgment you should
ask yourself a series of questions, and you should do this
when evaluating any piece of information, whether it is from
a book or an article or information off the Web.
For more detailed discussion of these criteria, see Evaluate
Information.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Audience | Authority
| Bias | Credibility
| Factual
| Up to Date | Appearance?
Audience
Who is the intended audience of the information? The
general public, a more educated or attuned segment of the
general public, or specialists in the field?
Authority
Who wrote the information? Why did they write it?
What are their credentials? How many other things have
they written? Who published/sponsored it? What's
the criteria for them publishing/sponsoring a work?
Bias
Is the information presented objectively? Are the opinions
balanced, or does the author have an agenda?
Some works are clearly more biased than others. But the biases
are not always obvious. It may be in omitting one or another
side that the author expresses biases. If the author wants
to at least have the air of being objective, then it should
acknowledge different viewpoints. But just because there is
an agenda to the piece does not mean you should dismiss it.
It will simply require finding other sources to discuss other
sides to the issue.
Credibility
Does the information seem credible? Does the author give
sources or suggestions for further reading for the information?
How comprehensive is the source list? What type of sources
did the author use? If some of the other sources are websites,
do the links work?
Credibility will have to be judged by what you find out in
all your research. But definitely note the sources and suggestions
for further reading in the scholarly pieces you find. If all
the sources are one type (say non-scholarly for a supposed
scholarly piece) or rather old, this may be important.
Factual
If facts or statistics are presented, are they accurate?
Try verifying the facts with another source. If a particular
statistic is important to your hypothesis, it would be worth
verifying. Some facts are pretty easy to verify with online
sources, such as population, capitals, etc. Unfortunately
a lot of times in non-scholarly sources, they do not give
complete citations of where they got their information. Instead
they say "a report issued by such and such agency today
stated..."
Up to Date
Is the information current?
Whether it is important that the information is current depends
on the issue. Certainly for some disciplines it is, and sometimes
your instructors will place date limits on your sources. But
just because the information is dated doesn't necessarily
mean it is not valuable. In history and literature, sometimes
the best book on a subject is one that 30 years old. Nevertheless,
you should always note the date of the information and the
dates of the references.
Appearance?
Another category that comes up a lot when evaluating websites
is appearance. How does the website look, can you navigate
it easily, are there any typos, etc. How crucial is the look
or navigation to judging the content of a site? One would
question a source with glaring typos or grammatical errors,
as this is a sign that the author did not put that much thought
into it. But not everyone has a graphical artist's sense of
style...
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