Although your research projects might require different approaches because they are dissimilar in focus, type, or discipline, there are some general principles of searching that can be applied to most situations. Use the following guide, based on the Big6 information literacy model, as a starting point. (The "Big6T" is copyright © (1987) Michael B. Eisenberg and Robert E. Berkowitz. For more information, visit: www.big6.com.) If your search results are inadequate, please do not hesitate to contact a reference librarian for guidance.

STEPS IN SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION

TASK DEFINITION

Choose a general topic

If you have a choice, you should always pick a topic that interests you and one with which you are already somewhat familiar.

For Topic Ideas

• Browse current journals in your field of inquiry for articles on current or interesting topics. Click here for instructions on browsing journals by title in Galileo databases.
  
  
• Go to Galileo and explore a periodical database which covers a subject you are interested in, such as Grove Art Online*, or a general database like Research Library*, which covers all fields. Click here for instructions on searching databases by subject.
  
  
• Ask your instructor for suggestions.
  
  
• Brainstorm topics with your class or Learning Team.
  
  
• Ask a librarian for assistance.
  

Focus your topic

Now that you have a general topic, focus it by asking yourself the following:

• What approach do I want to take? For instance, if you wish to study tobacco, is it the effects on the user's health or the economic/legal issues you want to examine?
  
  
• Has too much already been written on my subject? You can find this out by looking on a few Galileo databases or in the library catalog.
  
  
• Is my subject too broad or too narrow? This will become apparent as you do your initial search for sources. If you come up with more sources than you can possibly read, you should narrow your topic further by focusing on one or two of its aspects. If you don't find enough sources, your topic may already be too narrow.

Determine the boundaries of the project

• What sort of product do I want to create? Determine the format of the project. For example, are you writing a traditional term paper or an oral report? Are you trying to accomplish something less traditional, like a multimedia project?
  
  
• How soon do I need information? Do you have time to wait for an interlibrary loan (1 to 6 weeks), or is your project due tomorrow?
  
  
• How long does my paper need to be? This is important because it will affect the breadth of your topic and the number of sources you will need.

Identify the main concepts

As you read through background sources, try to identify the main concepts associated with your topic. Make a list of the terms used to refer to these concepts. You can later search for words from this list in reference books, periodical databases, indexes, and other information sources. Keep in mind that these sources may not use the same terms to identify your topic that you would. When looking at citations in periodical databases you can see the headings, or terms, used to describe a certain article in the "subject heading" or "descriptor" field. Find other articles on the same topic by searching under these headings. The same applies to book catalogs.

INFORMATION-SEEKING STRATEGIES

Find background information, if necessary. If you do not know enough about your topic even to get started, you will need to find background information. The best place to go for background information is to the reference collection. The reference collection is a group of non-circulating, highly used materials such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, biographical works, maps, almanacs, etc. These sources often represent the most current information the library owns. They answer who, what, where, when and why questions and are more useful for purposes of identification than for in-depth research. The reference section is an excellent "first place to look" when conducting research.

In addition to the general encyclopedias with which you may already be familiar, the Shorter College Libraries have a number of subject encyclopedias that provide background on discipline-specific topics. Some of these include:

AccessScience@McGraw-Hill* (science/technology encyclopedia)
Online through Galileo

The Cold War Encyclopedia
North Atlanta R 909.82503 P21c

Encyclopædia Britannica Online*
Online through Galileo

Encyclopedia of African American Business History
North Atlanta R 338.642208996073 En1

Encyclopedia of Banking & Finance
Lawrenceville, North Atlanta, Riverdale, Rome R 332.103 En1

The Encyclopedia of Career Change and Work Issues
North Atlanta R 650.1 En1

The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics
Lawrenceville, North Atlanta, Rome R 330.03 F77

Encyclopedia of World Art
Rome R 703 En1e

Grove Art Online*
Online through Galileo

McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology
Rome R 503 M17m

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Rome R 780.3 N42n

Religion: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia
North Atlanta, Rome R 200.3 L57r


Determine the range of possible sources

As you search for sources, keep in mind what type and variety of sources you need, if specified by your instructor. For example, do you need books or journal articles to support your paper? Do you need recent or historical sources? Do you need statistics? News items? Articles from scholarly journals? Will Internet documents suffice, or should you limit your sources to items found in print?

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Your instructor may ask you to find some primary sources and some secondary sources. Primary sources are those that provide firsthand knowledge of a topic, or that constitute an original topic in themselves. For example, the live radio broadcast that captured the crash of the Hindenburg is considered a primary source because it provides us with firsthand knowledge of that event. William Faulkner's novel, Light in August, is considered a primary source because it is an original work of art, not a commentary on another work.

Secondary sources are those which interpret primary sources, such as biographies, reviews, and books or articles about a historical event written after the fact. An historical account of the Hindenburg crash that got its information from the live radio broadcast would be a secondary source because it is a secondhand account of the event. A book review of Light in August would be a secondary source because it interprets the primary source, but is not an original work of art in itself.

Examples

Primary: an eyewitness account of an event
Secondary: a secondhand account of an event

Primary: a news report of an event
Secondary: an historical account of an event

Primary: an autobiography
Seondary: a biography

Primary: a diary
Seondary: a thesis about a diary and its historical significance

Primary: a work of art, e.g., poetry, music, or literature
Seondary: criticism and commentary about a work of art

Primary: an original U.S. Census record
Seondary: a set of statistics recently compiled from historical census records

Primary: an artifact such as an arrowhead, pottery, etc.
Secondary: a photograph or drawing of an artifact


Peer-Reviewed vs. Popular Sources

Your instructor may also make a distinction between peer-reviewed and popular (non-peer-reviewed) sources when referring to articles from periodicals. Peer review refers to a method of choosing articles for publication in a journal that is scholarly or professional in nature.

Whereas articles in popular magazines are typically chosen by an editor, articles in peer-reviewed journals are chosen by an author's peers in his field of study. For example, The New England Journal of Medicine, which is peer-reviewed, employs physicians as peer reviewers. These physicians read submissions and make recommendations about whether to accept or reject them for publication. The term "refereed" is a synonym for peer-reviewed.

Following are some characteristics of peer-reviewed and popular articles.


Peer-reviewed: give an author's name and his or her credentials
Popular articles: may not give an author's name

Peer-reviewed: are written by and for experts or researchers in the author's field of study
Popular articles: are typically written by non-experts for the general public

Peer-reviewed: are often accompanied by charts, graphs and diagrams, but rarely by photographs
Popular articles:may not contain charts or graphs, but often have photographs

Peer-reviewed:provide bibliographies and footnotes (references)
Popular articles:usually give no references (bibliographies or footnotes)

Peer-reviewed:are written using the specialized language of a field
Popular articles:are written using layman's language

Peer-reviewed:almost never include advertising
Popular articles:almost always include advertising


LOCATION AND ACCESS

Identify and locate specific sources of information. Instructions for identifying and locating different types of information sources are given elsewhere in this guide, as outlined below.

Books

Books typically treat a particular topic in great detail. They can provide thoughtful commentary and historical perspective. Books generally have bibliographies of sources the author(s) consulted, which can provide you with a list of potential additional sources. For detailed information on finding books, see the tutorial on how to find books.

Articles

Articles provide current information on a topic. You may want to include articles among your sources, especially if your topic is too new to be the subject of a book. To learn how to find articles using both print and electronic reference tools, see the tutorial on how to find journal articles.

Internet Sources

The Internet is another possible source of information on your topic, though caution must be exercised when choosing among search results, since Internet sites are not all created equal. You should also be sure that your instructor will accept internet information as a source. For Internet search techniques, see Lesson 6 of Shorter Library's Online Tutorial.

Research Hint

Compile a working bibliography. Whenever you identify a source that may be useful to you, be sure to write down its complete citation. Maintaining complete citations for all of your sources, even at the preliminary stages of research, is very important. You may save yourself weeks or months of trying to identify a photocopy or printout with no title or author name. For information about citing electronic documents in APA and MLA style, see the the chapter on tutorial on how to document sources.

Biographical Sources

Sometimes your research centers on an individual. An encyclopedia is a good place to start to find out about a well-known figure, but if you need detailed information about a person's life and accomplishments, you will need to consult biographical sources. See Lesson 7 of the Library's Online Tutorial to learn how.

Critical Sources

In literature courses, you may need to find criticism and interpretation of a particular author's work, or reviews of plays or books. Lesson 8 of the Tutorial guides you through this process.

Obtain the sources identified

Many materials, both print and electronic, will be available at your campus library. Books and journal articles not available at your location can be requested through intercampus or interlibrary loan. See the chapter on Intercampus and Interlibrary Loans for more information.

USE OF INFORMATION

Evaluate the sources. Be aware that not all information available to you is valid or trustworthy. You must evaluate the relative worth of each item according to slightly different sets of criteria, depending on its source.

Evaluating Print Sources

Generally, materials that have made their way into library collections have undergone several levels of review, and can usually be counted upon to be reliable. Librarians typically base their purchasing decisions on reviews written by experts qualified to judge a book's content. Bibliographies and other evaluation aids are also frequently consulted before making the decision to purchase a book. Librarians think carefully about the information needs of their constituents and how a particular source will fill those needs before acquiring it. Also, reputable publishing houses choose only manuscripts that meet their standards and for which there is an identifiable need, and libraries tend to buy only from these publishers.

Still, it will benefit you to think critically about the sources you encounter, whether inside or outside the library. Consider the following aspects of a printed work when evaluating its quality. Note that e-books and articles found on Galileo are reprints of items originally published in paper, so you should treat them as print sources for purposes of evaluation.

Authority

• Who is the author? Is there anything about the author that would lead you to suspect him or her of bias toward your topic? (For example, a cancer researcher in a government agency might be seen as more objective than one whose work is funded by a tobacco company.)
  
  
• What is the author's educational background, experience, and institutional affiliation? (The books Who's Who in America, Merriam Webster's Biographical Dictionary, The Encyclopedia of American Biography, or the website Biography.com can give you biographical information.)
  
  
• Has he or she written anything else about this topic? (You can use WorldCat to find other books by the author.)

Currency

When was this information first published? Even if the date is current, a book or article might be a reprint of older information. Many things change almost daily-even country names- and, depending on your topic, you may need the most recent information available.

Documentation

• Does the author cite other sources to support his writing?
  
  
• Is there a bibliography? Are there footnotes or endnotes?
  
  
• Does the author cite quality sources, such as peer-reviewed journals and books published by scholarly, or at least reputable, publishers?
  
  
• Periodicals with an arrow preceding their names in the title index of Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory (located on the reference shelf at R 016.05 Ul7p) are peer-reviewed.

Purpose

Is the author simply presenting information or trying to convince us of something? If the latter is true, is it possible that the author only gave one side of the argument in order to make a point, thereby leaving out other important information about the topic?

Objectivity

Is the writing based on fact or opinion? The opinion of the author may be quite valuable, depending upon his or her qualifications. The most erroneous ideas can qualify as opinions; facts, however, are consistent with reason, and in academic writing are usually substantiated by references to research.

Audience

Who is the intended audience of the publication? This is particularly important in the case of periodical articles, which may be written for either a scholarly or a general (popular) audience.

EVALUATING INTERNET RESOURCES

Anyone with a computer and a modem can access resources from anywhere in the world and from many types of information providers. These providers include governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals making their pet projects accessible to the world.

But whereas the books, journals, and other resources which you find in any library have already been evaluated before purchase, there is no editorial board for the Internet. Internet resources frequently lack the publishing industry's filters of need and worth, may be poorly maintained, and may be only transiently or intermittently available. Anyone can create an Internet site which may contain incorrect or misleading information, whether accidentally or deliberately.

Esther Grassian, in her article, Thinking Critically About World Wide Web Resources, discusses important Internet evaluation criteria, and makes additional points regarding Web sites for subject disciplines in Thinking Critically About Discipline-Based World Wide Web Resources.

USE THE GATHERED INFORMATION ETHICALLY

When conducting research, you must credit the sources you used which contributed to your final product. This attribution, or documentation, serves several purposes:

1) It provides a way for your readers (or professor) to read more about your topic;

2) It allows readers to evaluate the sources you used to reach a conclusion with which they may or may not agree; and

3) Documentation is necessary so that you will not appear to be plagiarizing, or claiming as your own, someone else's work.

Documenting Sources

Documentation is given in the form of a bibliography, or list of sources (sometimes called "references") consulted; footnotes or endnotes (depending on documentation style) are often included as well. Parenthetical citations-brief notes in parentheses that direct the reader to citations in the bibliography-are given in the body of the paper and are used to attribute a direct quote or idea. A bibliography is found in the last pages of a research paper, article, book, etc., and should be a complete list of all sources the author consulted. See the tutorial on documenting sources, for more information.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Ask yourself the following questions about everything you write:

For material that is not directly quoted:

• Does this material represent my ideas, and only my ideas?
  
  
• If this material is paraphrased or summarized from another source, have I documented the source from which I took the ideas?
  
  
• If this material is paraphrased or summarized from another source, have I used my own words to paraphrase, rather than simply rearranging the author's words?

For material that is directly quoted:

• If I have copied material word-for-word from another source, is that material either enclosed in quotation marks ("") or in the form of a block quote?
  
  
• If I have copied material word-for-word from another source, have I documented the source from which I took that quotation?
  
  
• If I have copied material word-for-word from another source, have I copied it exactly, including the punctuation?
  

For all material:

• Have I given enough information in my paper or project (including parenthetical and bibliographical citations) for someone else to find that source?
  
  
• Have I listed in my bibliography only those sources I have used in my paper or project (that is, not tried to "inflate" the bibliography by including sources that were not used)?
  
  
• Was each piece of information cited taken from the source to which it was attributed?
  
  
• Have I given credit for any graphical material (charts, graphs, tables, pictures, etc.) I may have used?

Be sure that you can answer yes to each of these questions before submitting an assignment.

SYNTHESIS

The synthesis stage involves the repackaging, or restructuring, of the information you have gathered to fashion your own product. Creating such a product entails far more than simply presenting a list of assembled facts; material from many sources must be read, digested, and combined in the mind of the student, then re-expressed in the student's own words. The purpose of scholarly writing is to create new knowledge by bringing together several strands of thought and integrating them in ways not imagined before. Your product should reflect the new and creative ideas inspired by the information you encountered in your search.

Synthesis also involves selecting an appropriate format in which to present one's research findings. In addition to such typical fare as term papers and oral reports, there are feasibility studies, employee handbooks, business plans, web pages, and other examples.

EVALUATION

Ultimately, both the product and the process must be evaluated. Unless the product is evaluated thoroughly, it is difficult to know whether or not the process has really come to an end; that is, if the goal of the project was not reached, it may be necessary to go back and repeat one or more of the steps above to bring the project to a satisfactory conclusion.

Evaluation of the Product

Consider the following when evaluating your product from an information standpoint:

• Did the product answer the question it set out to answer?
  
  
• Were the requirements of the product met? Is it as long as it needs to be? In the proper format? Does it have the proper number and type of sources, etc.?
  
  
• Was gathered information used appropriately? Did I plagiarize? Did I document properly?
  
  
• Was the source material restructured/repackaged, or merely copied? Is this an original work, expressed in my own words, even though it may draw ideas from the works of others?

Evaluation of the Process

Evaluate the process of your search for, and use of, information by asking yourself the following:

• Which steps in the model did I have the most difficulty completing?
  
  
• How well did I select and narrow the topic?
  
  
• Was I able to find a wide variety of sources?
  
  
• Was I able to find quality sources?
  
  
• What can I do better on my next search?

If you wish, or if you have been requested to do so by an instructor, you may take the Research Essentials Exercise.

*Part of the Database Offerings in GALILEO, Georgia's Virtual Library.