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Research Skills
Conducting research effectively and managing information well is
essential for success in almost any career. Research helps you find out how,
why, what, where, and when. The worldwide web has made an enormous range of
resources available, yet students are rarely taught advanced skills or
encouraged to fully utilize these resources as a normal part of class
activities. This should be a priority in the student's first year and should
be included as a component of classes throughout their academic career. I
use the following assignment to help hone student's research skills.
Step 1: Choose a research topic and
develop key words and phrases
The critical first step is choosing an appropriate topic for research. This
might be any one of our class lectures focused on a specific country, such
as "sustainable agriculture" in Kenya, "tenure" issues
in sustainable land management in Mexico, "agroforestry" in
Ethiopia, or "sustainable building" in the Netherlands. It is
often a good idea to look in a dictionary or encyclopedia first to learn a
little about the subject (online encyclopedias like Britannica
or Encarta may help).
If you are researching a crop always include the scientific name, i.e. Corn
= Zea mays.
After learning a little about the subject develop a short list of key words
for your search. Choosing search terms and using Boolean logic (and/or/order)
to limit results is essential. (a few pointers on
Boolean Logic) Different browsers and databases use
different markers to set word order, adjacent words, etc. Always look up and
use advanced or expert searching "help".
Two of the more powerful search engines AltaVista and NorthernLight use a +
sign to make sure a word is included and quotation marks "to include
phrases".
We might try: +corn +"Zea mays" +sustainability
+"ecological farming" +agroecology +Mexico In other data
bases these same word combinations can usually be made by filling in boxes
in the advanced searching option.
Step 2: Start with the excellent
resources of the USIU Walter library
Begin with OCLC First Search and its 60+ data bases by
entering the URL http://students.usiu.edu/library/datab.htm.
(note -- there is no www in this address)
You might start here with your search terms. The little page to the right
of the databases list tells you if you may find full text from journals and
magazines--WilsonSelect often does. Try ArticleFirst, Eco, WorldCat, and
WilsonSelect. Keep track of your results! If you use OCLC in the
library you can get help from the reference librarians.
Then go back to the OCLC First Search home page and click on advanced
search (you will see the box at the bottom of the page) and select a
specific data base from the complete list of data bases. For agriculture and
this class start with Agricola (the National Agricultural
Library). You might also try ContentsFirst - a table of
contents for 12,500 journals. Note on your research history where you went
and what you found.
List your search terms and word combinations and the results for each
database.
******** You must use at least five databases. ********
For this class the following may also be very helpful.
Lexis-Nexis - full text of newspapers articles (access from
front page OCLC)
BasicBiosis - biology data base
Medline at the National Medical Library is also a very
useful tool.
Step 3. Use the University of California
Melvyl database
You next stop on the information freeway is a visit to the many libraries of
the University of California. For this assignment you must include a search
for books with your research title words in Melvyl by
going to http://www.melvyl.ucop.edu/?CSdb=cat.
The University of California data base of books and periodicals can be very
helpful. It can help you find titles of books you might look for at a city
library, bookstore or on line. If you find the ideal book at the UCSD
library you can find the shelf number and see if it is checked out or on the
shelf. You can also check to see if it is sold at the UCSD bookstore. Free
weekend parking makes UCSD libraries well worth visiting--but make sure know
which library you are headed to.
Step 4. The California Digital Library -
Searchlight
The University of California and cooperating libraries are moving more
material to the web every day as part of the CDL. Their inter-linked data
base and library search is called Searchlight. Try it by going
to http://searchlight.cdlib.org/cgi-bin/searchlight.
This offers two broad search areas: Science and Engineering & Social
Sciences and Humanities. Try a search with your key words in each
directory. You can choose how long you are willing to let it search for you.
I usually start at 30 seconds, but if it is an unusual or rare topic you
might give it three minutes. List the results on your search history, once
again describing the search terms and hits.
Step 5. Web Crawling
The final step is a jump into the worldwide web, which can be helpful but is
often not as good as library research using refereed journals and books.
Internet sources are often supported by manufacturers or advocacy groups and
information is not always complete or truthful. Give greater weight to
neutral and peer reviewed academic journals, books, and important newspapers
(New York Times, Los Angeles
Times). Some professors will not accept any
internet references and I only allow half to be from the internet. Become
very familiar with search engines or browsers such as:
http://www.altavista.com
http://www.northernlight.com
http://www.google.com
These are indexed and assembled using different strategies and often
provide very different results. Add additional words to more tightly focus
your research if you find too many items. Start by repeating your search
using the same search terms you used before and then tighten up the focus by
adding more terms as needed.
You must have at least three different search engines in your
search profile. Provide the URL for the search engine, the date and time,
the search terms you used and the number of hits. List the terms you added
to reduce the number to a manageable number of sites to review. Describe any
possible bias in the site - Is it a manufacturer or advocacy group? Is the
author identified? Is it referenced? How good are the links to other sites?
******** You must use at least 3 search engines ********
Step 6. Sample Notes
These library and web resources will help you improve your understanding of
your topic, but don't plagiarize them. You may choose to copy or print some
pages and articles or book pages. Make sure that you have a full and
complete citation for your references section. This includes the author,
date, title, source, volume and/or issue number, publisher, place and pages.
It is a good idea to also list the shelf number and library where you found
the book or magazine. It may also include the search engine, URL, date and
time. Refer to the syllabus notes on formatting references and citations
using CBE format as modified by the journal Ecological Economics.
To avoid plagiarizing I recommend transcribing the information and making
notes in your own words as soon as possible. Extract the critical
information that will help with your paper and put it in sentence or key
phrase form. This makes it much easier to write a paper as you will remember
these phrases when you start to write.
For this assignment you must turn in two sample research notes--which should
be computer printed, providing full reference data and shelf numbers or URLs
as well as your notes. One of these should be from the library (a book or
journal) and one can be from the world wide web. These might be a half page
or so, including all relevant citation information.
Here is a sample note:
Egan, Timothy. 2000. Failing farmers learn to profit from wealth of U.S.
subsidies.
The New York Times, 12/24-2000. volume 150, number
51,612, page 1, 16.
(reference format) 150(51612):1,16.
The big harvest of checks starts in the fall,
$40,000 for being a farmer, 40,000 for emergencies, more than $100,000 for
not making any money on what is grown, and up to $50,000 for leaving land
idle and not growing anything on it. Some farmers can get more than a
quarter of a million dollars simply by having another failing year.
Nationally more than 1.6 million farmers averaged
payments of $13,000 last year. "Virtually every farmer in America is on
the dole" says Clark Williams-Derry an analyst with the Environmental
Working Group.
It is estimated half of these farmers would go out
of business without the dole.
Taxpayer payments reached $28 billion for the
country.
Montana wheat farmers would lose about $2 a bushel
without subsidies - and most wheat is exported into international markets.
In Chouteau county Montana the top 1% of farmers
received an average of $616,000 in Federal payments, while the top 10%
averaged more than $150,000. The county has only 5,100 residents but
received $51 million dollars in farm payments--$10,000 for every man, woman
and child.
Here is an example of the assignment. A
Few
Pointers on Boolean Logic
Also check out link
on Boolean Logic
information or retrieval
finds documents containing 'information' or 'retrieval'
information and retrieval
finds documents containing both 'information' and 'retrieval'
information not retrieval
finds documents containing 'information' but not 'retrieval'
(information not retrieval) and WAIS
finds documents containing 'WAIS', plus 'information' but not 'retrieval'
web*
finds documents containing words starting with 'web'
Remember that these are generic rules and that these may not necessarily
apply to all search engines.
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