The Publishing Cycle

Complex Life Forms Discovered on Mars!

Suppose the following just happened moments ago:

In what medium would we expect it to be published first?

Assume, for the moment, that this is not big enough news to interrupt

regularly scheduled programming.Think about this before moving on…

Breaking news often first shows up on The Web

Nothing has to be interrupted, and it is immediate…

The next likely place we might receive this news is on The Radio

Headlines may be read between news breaks,

but the full story won’t go on until the next scheduled program.

Sticking with broadcast news,Television

would be the next likely medium. Since it requires pictures, TV news stories usually take longer to produce than radio news.

Meanwhile, back on The Web

Television and Radio news broadcasts may be available in

Archives after the original air date and time. Take a look at

these:Gas Plume on Mars Signals Potential Life – NPR

Web Exclusive: Life on Mars – CBS NOTE: To find this you may need to enter the search words:

web exclusive life mars

Transcriptsof television and radio news broadcasts also may be

available via paid subscription databases such as Elibrary or Campus Research.You can use Campus Research to find the transcript of :

Gas Plume on Mars Signals Potential Life from NPR. This is a transcript of the NPR broadcast on the previous page.

Once in this database, be sure to check “Broadcast Transcripts” as the “Publication Type” and enter the search phrase (in quotation marks)

“gas plume on mars signals potential life”

Extra!

Newspapersdailies, are usually next. Now it’s in print!

Extra!Life on

Mars!

Then come the weekly News Magazines

LIFE ON MARS

… followed almost immediately by coverage in

Periodical Databases

Kluger, Jeffrey. "Mission to Mars." Time 26 Jan. 2004: 42. ProQuest. Web. 07 Feb. 2006

Begley, Sharon. "The Search for Life." Newsweek 6 Dec. 1999: 54-62. ProQuest. Web. 07 Feb 2006

Two of the cover stories pictured on the previous page can be found

in the periodical database, ProQuest.

Typically, these are loaded into ProQuest within 24 hours of the print publication.

These are followed shortly thereafter by Discipline-Specific Magazines

… and these, in turn, are loaded into Periodical Databases

Eventually, scholars carefully research the topic, using reviews of the literature,

examination of data, and possibly original data gathering and analysis. The results of these studies, written by scholars for

scholars (or specialists for specialists) are published in

Journals (Scholarly or “Peer Reviewed”)

Bond, Peter. "Four Decades of Discovery and Disaster."

Astronomy & Geophysics 44.4 (2003):23-24.26. Academic

Search Complete. Web. 03 Mar. 2012.

Kerr, Richard A. "On Mars, a Second Chance for Life." Science

306.5704 (2004) 2010-2012. Academic Search Complete. 05

Mar. 2012.

These same scholars may present their findings at Conferences. Their presentations are published as

Conference ProceedingsEuropean Workshop on Exo-Astrobiology (3rd: 2003: Madrid, Spain. Proceedings of the III European Workshop on Exo-Astrobiology : Mars, the search for life: Proceedings of the 3rd European Workshop on Exo-astrobiology. Noordwijk: ESA Publications Division, 2004.

If Highline doesn’t own this, you might be able to find it in WorldCat (also known as “Wayfinder” and ask us to get it for you using our “Interlibrary Loan” service.

WorldCat is a catalog listing the holdings of all the larger libraries in the United States and many more worldwide.

Eventually, somebody writes aBook

Sawyer, Kathy. The Rock from Mars: a Detective Story on

Two Planets. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2006.

Tokano, Tetsuya, ed. Water on Mars and Life. New York: Springer, 2005.

Using the library catalog, or a tool like WorldCat, you can track these down.

Then years go by, and the subject eventually finds its way into

A Reference Book

Shostak, Seth. "Life in the Universe, Search for." Space Sciences. Ed. Pat

Dasch. Vol. 2: Planetary Science and Astronomy. New York: Macmillan

Reference USA, 2002. 84-90. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 Mar.

2012.

Awareness of the Publishing Cycle is useful when your query suggests that currency, depth, or analysis of information are important.

If you know which of these kinds of information you’re looking for, you’ll have a better idea about where to look.

Think of these ideas, along with awareness of resources, as your toolbox. Wield those

tools well!

The End