CS 595 Step 3:

Wade into the research waters to find sources 

 

Wading birds

URL: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=flamingoes&origin=FX101741979#ai:MC900351010|. Accessed 6 February 2011.

 

Objectives for this session:

Review:   Ideas and keywords (develop strategy)
Discover:   Sources (work your strategy)
Evaluate:  What you found (does the strategy work?)
Go deep:  Tools for more in-depth research
For later:  Citing your sources

_________________________________________

 

Review from Step 2:

Ideas:

Keywords: 

      narrower terms    and   broader terms

      synonyms    and   antonyms (opposites)

      proper names?
_________________________________________

Example

Idea:
Cloud computing is a secure option for business

Terms:   cloud computing,  security, business

Narrower terms:  privacy, confidentiality, medical records, financial transactions
           
Broader terms:  information, data, management

Antonyms:  risk, hacking

Proper names:   Amazon, IBM
_________________________________________

Work your strategy

 

whole tree

Starting points:

Google searching, Wikipedia

 UNH Library catalog

Log your searches

Evaluate results...

__________________________________________


Does your strategy work? 

Can you find good material to refine your idea?

1.  Google searching

     Quick evaluation: Any relevant results?
     Deeper evaluation:  quality of results
          Tip sheet:   Evaluating Web Sites for Quality

2.  Wikipedia

Quick evaluation: Any relevant results?
Deeper evaluation:  quality of results
       Tip:  Look for Wikipedia editors’ comments at top of article
       Tip sheet:   Evaluating Web Sites for Quality

 UNH Library catalog

Quick evaluation: Any relevant results?
More evaluation:  quality of results
       Tip:   Selection process for library resources  




_________________________________________


Look ahead:

In Step 4, you evaluate the viability of your idea.
In Step 5, you refine your idea into a thesis statement.


For Step 6, you’ll dive more deeply into searching
with your refined thesis statement and into really
reading your sources.


The search strategy is much the same,
but you may need some more powerful search tools.

So...








__________________________________________

Go deep

tree close-up

 

The Library provides specialized discovery tools.
To get to these, go to the UNH Library web site...

Choices: 

To search for books and other content by subject, keyword,  etc.:
   UNH Library web site>Research tools>UNH Library Catalog (Advanced)
   UNH Library web site>Research tools>Boston Library Consortium Catalogs
   or – search either catalog with keywords on UNH Library web site>Books & Media tab
   Online computing books:  Safari Online Books

For articles
   General (all types)
       UNH Library web site>Articles & Databases tab (filter results with options in left column)
   Mostly scholarly
      UNH Library web site>Research tools>Databases>  choose by topic and description
Examples:  PubMed for medical articles
                     SportDiscus for sports research
                     ACM Digital Library for professional-level and research computing
 

__________________________________________

Cite sources that you used

citation = path to your source

Cite your source for:  a quote, a paraphrase, a key concept or fact

Sample quote:

"If customer data ... is held in the cloud, then all practices involved with customer data ... have to be re-assessed for compliance purposes."
(Schneider 2010)

Sample citations:

1. Article (author, year, article title, journal, volume, issue, pages):
Schneider, Ivan. 2010. "Auditing and Compliance in the Cloud" Popular Computing 118:1, 78-82.

2. Book (author, book title, place & year published, pages where you found the idea, fact or quote):
Schneider, Ivan. 2010. Auditing and Compliance in the Cloud (New York: McGraw-Hill), p. 78.

3. Web site (author if one is listed, title (at top of page), URL, date accessed):
Schneider, Ivan. 2010. Auditing and Compliance in the Cloud. URL:http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/large-business/auditing-and-compliance-cloud.aspx (Accessed 20 January 2011).

 

You can check a few citation styles quickly at:

http://www.lib.jmu.edu/help/checkcite/

 

For more info, see:

UNH Library website>Research Tools>Bibliography formats

 



______________________________________

Try it!

  1. Strategize
  2.  Select Sources
  3.  Search
  4.  Discover
  5.  Log
  6.  Evaluate,
  7.  Refine
  8.  and continuing:  Repeat, Read, Write, Cite, Present

 

For more help on searching, ask library staff or contact me:

Emily Poworoznek, Engineering & Physical Sciences Librarian

el@unh.edu

862-4168