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OK. I’ve got a bunch of sources. I don’t want to read anything thoroughly
yet. I’m still trying to figure out what parts of the subject I want to
pursue, what ideas I might want to discuss in my paper, and what words I
should use to find more information on the specific issues I choose.
WORDS???
| Remember my idea?
I hear alcoholism is called a disease. But I thought diseases were
caused by germs or viruses or bad cells or genes, sometimes. Is alcoholism
a disease like that? It looks more like a bad habit to me. I know alcohol
abuse can cause disease, like cirrhosis of the liver, but is alcoholism
itself a disease?
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These are the words that I pull out of my IDEA – the words that
express the gist of it : Alcoholism,
disease,
habit.
Here's the FRONT COVER
from one of the books I found. It seems to be the source that most closely
echoes my idea.
These are the words I pull off the cover:
- alcoholism
- psychiatrist
- addictive
- addiction
- behaviors
I'll look for additional words that will help me research my topic. I'll examine
the back cover of the book, the Table of Contents, and the inside covers of the
book. I can even browse the index looking for big entries
if I need more words.
Here’s my list of words...
| THE most essential KEYWORD(s)
|
WORDS THAT EXPRESS POINT OF VIEW
1 |
WORDS THAT EXPRESS POINT OF VIEW 2
|
WORDS THAT EXPRESS POINT OF VIEW 3
|
OTHER WORDS |
alcoholism |
psychology
psychiatrist
addiction
behavior
compulsive
emotional
addictive |
disease
physical
genetics |
|
cause
treatment
twelve-step
|
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THE KEYWORD is the essential word
(or words) that must be in every source. Additional words are categorized
under the point of view they contribute to, and the OTHER WORDS are those
that don't support a particular point of view but might be useful with either.
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Examine book covers,
tables of contents, indexes, article section headings, etc., of the books
and articles you found. Make a list of words that will help you research
your topic. Try to organize them like I did above which works well with many topics. You may need to add additional columns for additional
points of view. If your subject won't break out this way, come up with a
meaningful way to categorize the words that you will use in
your search for information. |
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To save and then complete the
WORKSHEET linked to below:
-
RIGHT CLICK the
WORKSHEET link
-
On the pop-up menu that appears, select
and click "Save target as" or "Save link as"
-
Save, then complete the
WORKSHEET Word file on your
computer
-
Submit your assignment to your
instructor
according to your instructor's directions.
"THE WORDS"
WORKSHEET |
Now
I will use my Word List to refine my search, to target sources that discuss the points of view I've identified – those with information specifically on the psychological aspects of alcoholism, or the view on alcoholism as a disease, or that discuss both points of view.
My Word
List...
| THE most essential KEYWORD(s)
|
WORDS THAT EXPRESS POINT OF VIEW 1 |
WORDS THAT EXPRESS POINT OF VIEW 2
|
OTHER WORDS |
alcoholism |
psychology
psychiatrist
addiction
behavior
compulsive
emotional
addictive |
disease
physical
genetics |
cause
treatment
twelve-step
|
|
Most
subscription databases and search engines let me search the full text of
articles or web documents, and I always retrieve much more than I could ever
look at. Using my list of words in various combinations along with good
search techniques, I will be able to locate websites and periodical
articles that focus specifically on the disease and/or psychological aspects
of alcoholism.
I'm
accustomed to using BOOLEAN OPERATORS
AND
OR
NOT
-
alcoholism AND psychology means that all documents retrieved must have both terms;
-
psychology OR disease means that all documents retrieved must have one of the terms;
-
alcoholism NOT disease means that all documents retrieved must have the term alcoholism but must not mention disease.
And I'm
accustomed to using QUOTATION
MARKS to enclose a phrase:
- "addictive behavior" means that all documents retrieved must have the 2 terms, and that they must appear right beside one another.
Click Here for
more information on
how to use
boolean operators and phrase
searching
Additional techniques including truncation, limiting and
field specification are very helpful in refining my search, so that the documents I retrieve are more likely to be the documents I need.
TRUNCATION.
alcoholism, alcoholic, alcoholics.
To find the word in all its forms:
alcoholi*.
I can search for 3 words by entering one. Many of the words on my Word List lend themselves to this technique:
- psych* retrieves psychology, psychological, psychiatrist;
- addict* retrieves addiction, addictive;
- gene* retrieves gene, genetic, genetics.
You can find out how to use TRUNCATION in an online catalog, subscription database or search engine by checking out the Help Screens. Sometimes the symbol is an *, sometimes it's a ?. Sometimes TRUNCATION isn’t an option, but if it is it can help a lot.
Academic Search Premier is a subscription database, available free through the library, which provides electronic access to the full text of more than 4500 different periodicals, some going as far back as 1975. Needless to say, it is huge! I’ll need every
Smart Searching technique available to find the best articles. It supports
TRUNCATION (use an *), and FIELD SPECIFICATION (Click on Field Codes),
and it supports lots of LIMITING.
FIELD SPECIFICATION
AB alcoholism means that the word alcoholism must appear in the abstract (summary) of the article.
TRUNCATION
gene* means that gene, genetic, or genetics must appear somewhere in the article
LIMIT retrieval to
- Full text
- Scholarly journals (reviewed by experts in the field and considered
acceptable for scholarly publication
- Published between 2000 and 2005
I can sort my results by date (to get
the most recent articles first), by source (the name of the publication),
author, or RELEVANCE. A Relevance sort puts the articles that have the most
information on my subject at the top of the list.
|
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Use
Academic Search Premier,
your Word List and good search techniques to find at least 3 peer reviewed journal articles.
At this time you should also revisit
Opposing Viewpoints
and attempt to find 3 additional
sources. The purpose is to perform a comprehensive
search and gather a variety of good sources--peer-reviewed,
magazines, newspapers, etc.
Add them to your
Working
Bibliography
|
Next I'll use
Google to
find websites.
Google's
Advanced Search Screen supports all the search techniques except truncation:
BOOLEAN OPERATORS and
PHRASE SEARCHING
| Find results |
with all of the
words |
= AND |
| with the exact
phrase |
= "quotation marks" |
| with at least
one of the words |
= OR |
| without the
words |
= NOT |
LIMIT
- Language since I can't read anything but English.
- Date to web pages updated in the past year so I'll get current information.
- Domain to exclude all .com sites, so that the documents I retrieve will come from educational institutions, government, or organizations, all tending to be more trustworthy than companies trying to sell me something.
FIELD SPECIFICATION
Occurrences specifies that my search term appear in the article's
- Title
- Text
- URL
- Links
- Anywhere in the page
The difference between a
Simple search, where I just enter some words in a box and hit return, and an
Advanced Search is 200,000+ documents!!!
SIMPLE
SEARCH results:
ADVANCED
SEARCH results:
Not only is the Advanced Search results number smaller, the results are better.
Smart Searching techniques will retrieve documents more closely aligned with your subject and, if you've
limited by Date and Domain, eliminating .coms, your documents will tend to be of higher quality as well.
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Your Working
Bibliography should now list at least:
You may want to use
ChesCat again,
targeting your search with your Word List and good search techniques. You may also need to use additional subscription databases, available through the
Library
to find the required periodical articles.
Submit your Working Bibliography to your instructor
according to your
instructor's directions.
Food for thought....a Working
Bibliography generally lists 3X the amount of sources that
eventually are documented in the paper.
While this statistic is arbitrary it generally indicates
that the author of the research paper has completed a
thorough and somewhat comprehensive search for information.
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