1. Information Sources for Academic Work: Beyond Google and Wikipedia
Eleri Strittmatter, Faculty Team Librarian for Computer Science, & Barry White, Faculty Team Librarian

2. Looking for information
Step Know what you’re looking
for.
Step 2. Search strategy.
Step 3. Searching - where to search.
Step 4. Assessing & Refining.
Step 5. Wrapping it up.
: Define your topic
A sentence that succinctly describes the essence of what you need to know

3. Know what you’re looking for
What do you want to find - Definitions? History? Current research?
Is there an Answer?
Text, Data, Images
Level
Free book search

4. Your task questions:
What is a 'web address' such as '
How does knowing one of these allow my computer to fetch pages of information from elsewhere in the world?
Why do these addresses have ' on the front?
What does the rest of the address mean?
How does my browser know what to draw on the page?
What is the relationship between 'the internet' and 'the web'?

5. Aboutness, Depth, Association
What is X?
How much do we need to know about X?
3. What else does X relate to?
* that I know about already
* that I need to know about
4. Is X an instance of a more general concept?
* if so, what?
5. What alternatives are there to X?
* what are their pros and cons?
6. Can I give a few examples of X?

6. Search Strategy: Asking the right questions
Search statement
Keywords /phrases
Synonyms
Broader and narrower terms
Concept Mapping - Mindmap
: Define your topic
A sentence that succinctly describes the essence of what you need to know

8. Search Statement
Use of
Fuzzy Logic in
Robot
Navigation

9. Combine terms – Boolean searching. Phrase searching.

10. Places to Look - Internet
Pros
Easy to use
Always find something
It’s free!
Cons
No quality control
Not comprehensive
Not necessarily free.

11. Places to Look – Library Resources
Pros
High quality - academic
Includes non-web stuff
It’s free!
Cons
Hard to use
Paper and digital
Not comprehensive

12. Where to look Definitions – dictionaries, standards, etc.
Background – encyclopedias, textbooks, etc.
Current research –journal articles, conference papers, etc.
News, commentaries – newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc.

13. Library – Where to look Books - catalogue

16. Library – Where to look Journal articles, conference papers
Subject databases

23. Internet Search Tools Directory Sites Single / Meta Search Engines
Some search different areas of the Internet (Single/Meta)
Differences in search functionality (Keyword, phrase,Boolean, Limits)
Some display your results differently (visual presentations)
Some provide additional functions (cited by, Findit, export)
Some look for a particular kind of information (people search)
Some Mash up data sources (Wolfram Alpha)
Examples of different types of Search engines
viewzi (screeenshot)
search-cube (arrow keys)
Specialist – disney

24. Web Directories Accredited sites Yahoo http://dir.yahoo.com/
Google
Intute

26. Search Engines Not only Google and Yahoo
Coverage, functionality, presentation, etc.
Comparison site

27. Smarter searching in Google
“More” features
Advanced Search Tips
Google Scholar
~keyword for synonym
~keyword for synonym searching

29. Advantages of Scholar – Find it links, Cited by, related articles

32. Assessing the WWW(W) Who wrote it? What’s it like? Why was it written?
Reliability (check another source)
Intellectual level
Why was it written?
When was it written?
Currency – is it up to date?

33. Who? Anyone can put stuff on the internet Who is the author?
Academic or from professional organisation?

34. What! Do you trust it? Spelling, grammar? Does it make sense? Logical?
Is it reliable? References?
Check elsewhere.

35. Why?
Are you being sold something?
Product information
Bias

36. When?
Is it up to date?
Does date matter?

38. Refining your search What’s missing? Other search terms – terminology
Follow links and citations

39. Recording search results
Export to etc
Use a Wiki to log your references
Try Delicious, Cite–u-Like
Bibliographic management software -
Endnote

42. Observe Copyright No multiple copies/downloads
No more than 5% or 1 chapter
No more than 1 article from a journal issue

43. References and citations.
Writing it up
References and citations.
Part of the scholarly apparatus.
Give credit where it’s due.
Helps others follow your arguments.
Shows you’ve done the work.

44. Writing it up Plagiarism
Plagiarism is presenting the ideas, work or words of other people without proper, clear and unambiguous acknowledgement.
Stealing someone else’s work.
Not giving credit where it’s due.

45. Plagiarism
Plagiarism is presenting the ideas, work or words of other people without proper, clear and unambiguous acknowledgement. This includes the unattributed use of parts of books or articles, passing it off as your own. ( Accessed 01/12/2009)

46. Recap Define the problem Decide the strategy Decide where to search
Search, Evaluate, Refine
Write it up / present it
What are we trying to find?
Which tool/s?
Evaluating, selecting, synthezising, documenting
Sharing results