AND LEVELS OF ACADEMIC RIGOUR

Evaluating Information

Newspapers

Newspapers have editors and fact checking, although because of the speed at which they are published they are more likely to make errors than other print publications. However they are obliged to print corrections and provide apologies if necessary when they do this, usually very soon after the mistake was made.

Newspapers Cont..

Newspapers are best searched via specialist Newspaper databases like Newsbank and Factiva (seen opposite)

NB: Newspaper databases are not always compatible with Endnote

Books

Books also have publishing houses to fact check them before publishing. Because of the time taken to write, market and publish a book, the amount of time to correct errors is longer. Books selected by academic libraries are often sought from academic (ie: university press) publishers and hopefully have an extra layer of quality assurance.

Books cont

The UTS library catalogue and also the BONUS system (seen opposite) are the primary places to search for books.

Periodicals and Journals, cont..

Periodicals are publications that come out every day, every week, every month, quarterly etc. The fact that they come out after a given period of time is what gives them their names. Different periodicals are for different audiences, and the information within some is considered more reliable and authoritative than in others.

Periodicals have different layers of editorial and quality control. They range from the lower end (popular magazines) up to trade publications and then finally scholarly or peer reviewed journals.

Magazines, Trade and Peer-Reviewed Journals

Magazine is a word associated with popular periodicals. Magazines tend to be easily identified in their print form because of their eye catching covers (Rolling Stone or Vogue for example) whereas Scholarly Journals tend to be a bit more low key, even plain, featuring only a masthead logo and text

Trade Publications: Between popular magazine and scholarly journals lie trade publications, for industry professionals who are not doing research or teaching at university. They are written by professionals in the industries, and sometimes journalists. It is common for these publications to be subject to the sort of scrutiny a newspaper or popular magazine might be, with editorial control, but not peer review.

Scholarly/Peer reviewed journal articles are considered to be good research because a panel of experts in the area read the article and provide suggestions and corrections before they are published.

Popular Journal Scholarly Journnal

Popular vs Scholarly Journals

Features of a Scholarly Journal Article

- Authors credentials listed at the top of the article, or an author biography provided to show their authority on their subject of choice- An abstract, or summary of the article

Quoting, and a bibliography or reference list at the end of an article also indicates a scholarly type of publication, though this does not guarantee peer review

Although there are exceptions, popular articles tend to be shorter than scholarly articles, and use less ‘jargon’ or terminology.

Other ways to Indentify a Scholarly Article

To determine if a scholarly journal is ‘peer reviewed’ scholarly journal, use these methods:

Some databases like EBSCO (Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, and more) and Proquest have a ‘restrict to peer review’ option. Other databases purport to have only peer reviewed material, like Scopus and ScienceDirect.

Another way of investigating a journal is to look up its title in the UTS library catalogue. When you do this, you should be take to the title page of the journal in the database you connect to. Information such whether its peer reviewed should be displayed on this page.

Types of Databases

All Peer Reviewedie: ScienceDirect

Mixedie: Proquest, EBSCO

Use UlrichswebLook up the Journal Homepage

Still Not Sure?

Theses

Finally theses are longer form pieces of research carried out at University level to achieve Masters and Doctorate degrees. They are subject to peer review by examiners. The supervisor cannot be an examiner, there are at least 2 examiners if not 3 and they are sourced from places outside the uni and if possible outside the country.

Finding Theses

Trove and Proquest Discovery are the primary search interfaces for Dissertations and Theses. (Proquest seen right)

Specialty Information Resources

There are also specialist forms of information that may be useful for you in preparing for these assignments – including Property Databases, State Government records, legal information and Hansard transcripts.

Consultancy Reports

Are produced by professional firms and organizational bodies. They are generally very thorough in their methodology and their acquisition of data. Some of these consultancies sell information back to industry, and sometimes libraries collect material from these sources. Names of some local consultancies or organisational bodies fulfilling these roles include the Property Council of Australia, Residex, RP Data and BIS Shrapnel.

Consultancy Reports cont..

The best way to locate these reports is to seek out the websites of the consulting firms or organisational bodies (residex website seen opposite), or search for their name in the library catalogue.

Legal Info

The main three sites to gain information on the Site developments listed are AUSTLII (seen opposite), Westlaw AU and the Parliament of NSW website

.gov, .edu, and .org websites

Government, educational and organizational websites (.gov, .edu and .org) can be searched using the site search in google.

Ie: site:.gov.au

Property Databases (RP Data, APM)

Provide quantitative data about properties, including demographic data about the areas they reside in.

Typically you will need to enter a street address to find information, rather than a development name.