Searching & Evaluating Resources

Rhetoric 1302

WWW vs. Periodical Databases

WWW Contains text,

images, sound, and video

Anyone can publish pages on the Web.

Numerous hits with many duplicates

Unregulated source of information

Periodical Databases Mainly text (HTML &

PDF formats) Access to specific

information High degree of

authority on the information found within

No duplicates

Searching the Web

Government information/Web sites Associations & organizations Commercial sites / Consumer info Current news (limited) Background info

Searching Periodical Databases

Need to research articles, esp. scholarly

Greater concern for authoritative sources

More powerful “advanced” searching

Need newspaper archives/backfiles

Popular Vs. Scholarly Intended for a

general audience. Articles written by

journalists who may or may not have special training

Articles do not have footnotes

Magazines have advertising, photographs, and glossy pages

For Profit Not Peer-reviewed

Intended for an audience knowledgeable in the field

Articles are written by scholars, whose names are listed along with credentials

Articles are footnoted and list sources used

No advertising, few photographs, and usually printed on plain paper

Usually not for profit Peer-reviewed

Choose Your Sources Wisely

No matter how much time and effort that you put into your paper, it will be only as good as the sources that you use

Choose a variety of sources (reference materials, journals, essays, books, statistics, documented research, letters)

Developing a Search Strategy

Select a topic Identify keywords Identify synonyms Group concepts and add

connectors (Boolean) Use truncation and/or wildcard

keys if available

Selecting a Topic and Determining Keywords

After deciding on a topic, write down the topic in the form of a sentence or question.

Does ethnicity and class affect educational attainment in England?

Look at your question and pull out the most important words.

Ethnicity class education England

Identifying Synonyms Take your keywords and find other

words that also describe your topic. Also write down narrower and broader terms to help refine your search.

ETHNICITY RACE RACISM MINORITY DEMOGRAPHY EDUCATION UNIVERSITIES COLLEGE ACADEMIA

STUDENT SCHOOL EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT BIAS PREJUDICE DISCRIMINATION ENGLISH BRITISH AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EQUALITY DIVERSITY

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY PROFILING

Group Concepts Group concepts together by

parentheses or quotation marks

“race prejudice” “higher educational attainment”

or

(race prejudice) (educational attainment)

Proximity connectors

w or w5 (“with”) – searches for two terms in the order typed

n or n5 (“near”) – searches for two terms in any order

“ “ quotation marks – groups terms together as a phrase

Examples

higher w education bias n3 racial “racial profiling” which is the same

as racial w profiling

Add connectors Connectors (Boolean)

AND-both terms must appear together in the record (narrows search)

OR-either term appears in the record (broadens search)

NOT-placed before term omits all records featuring this term in them (use NOT carefully – it may omit results that you had not intended)

Examples

“racial bias” AND “higher education”

“higher education” OR “university”

(“higher education” OR “university”) AND “racial bias”

Use truncation and/or wildcard keys if available

Both use a special key (*, ?, #, $) depending on the source used

Truncation - When key placed at end of term, all variations of word (from “trunk” or root onward) found.

Wildcard key – Replaces a single character and makes it a “wildcard” for any letter in the alphabet.

Examples universit*

universities university

Wom?n women woman womyn

“racial bias” AND universit*

OR

“higher education” AND

rac*

Evaluating Sources (ABC’s)

Audience Authority Bias Currency Scope

Audience

What age group/education level/political affiliation/etc. is the audience?

Is this for a person with in-depth knowledge or a layperson?

Authority

Does the author’s name appear on the Web page?

What are his/her credentials? Does the author provide contact

information?

Bias

Is the source objective? Could the writer or the

organization’s affiliation put a different spin on the information presented?

What is the purpose of the source?

Currency

When was the work published? When was the work last updated? How old are the sources or items

in the bibliography? How current is the topic? If a Web page, do the links work?

Scope

What does/doesn’t the work cover?

Is it an in-depth study (many pages) or superficial (one page)?

Are sources and statistics cited? If a site, does it offer unique info

not found in any other source?

Selecting a Search Engine

Use Search Engine Watch or Search Engine Showdown to find and compare.

Choose only 2 or 3 search engines and learn them well. Use help screen/search tips to educate

yourself on advanced options. Familiarize yourself with the advanced

search, if available.

Selecting Your Database(s)

Choose by subject http://www.utdallas.edu/library/reference/subjectdata.html

In Alphabetical List, click “?” icon following name for more information

Ask a Reference Librarian – we know what’s best!

Thesaurus

What is it? List of standard subject terms used for

indexing the documents in their files Also known as controlled vocabulary

African American use Black Americans

Racial Bias use Racism

Citing your sources

MLA, APA, Chicago Manual of Style, and other citation manuals available at the Reference Desk.

Copies may be available in Main Stacks

Need help citing? The Writing Lab can help.

On-Line Sources for citing Citation Style Guides by Auburn University

http://www.lib.auburn.edu/citations.html Citing Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism by Duke

University http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/citing.htm Online! Citation Styles by Bedford/St. Martin’s

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html Documentation Guide – Turabian

http://juno.concordia.ca/faqs/turabian.html Sources: Their Use and Acknowledgement by

Dartmouth College http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sources/index.html

Other Library Services Telephone

Reference 972-883-2955

Monday – Thursday 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Friday 9:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Saturday 10:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Sunday 1:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

E-mail Reference “Ask A Librarian”

http://www.utdallas.edu/library/reference/erefform.htm

By appointment with a reference librarian

Contact Loreen Phillips loreen.phillips@utdallas.ed

u Stop by the reference desk

and ask

Ask a UT System Librarian-Chat

Monday-Thurs. 12:00-6:00 pm; Friday 12:00-4:00 pm CST

http://www.lib.utsystem.edu/students/ask.html