Even with a great strategy for researching, you can still be stalled in the process if you don't know where to look for information or how to evaluate the sources you find. When you understand the basics of where to look and how to know if the material you find is a valuable resource, you can approach any research project with confidence. Major Sources of Technical Information
Most technical information today is available in hardcopy and need to decide which is the most convenient way for you to find the material you need. To get started on your research, you may want to browse through the sources listed below to see which ones fit the of research you're doing.
Online Sources Most technical resources can be accessed through online databases available at the library or from your home or office computer. (Because
URLs change, use a search engine like Google to find these resources.) The following are some of the database resources available:
Applied Science and Index: In-depth coverage of journal cita-
tions in the sciences, engineering, and technology.
]
Finding and Evaluating Sources 33 Figure
Mind Maps
Mind-mapping also known as "branching," "ballooning," or "clustering," is a visual technique allows writers to they arc thinking and appropriate
between thoughts. Although arc the basic process is as follows:
a. Write main topic you're researching in the middle of a large sheet of paper or other writing surface (a whiteboard or a flip chart), and draw a circle around it. Make that the paper is large enough to allow for extensive branches of thought.
b. Think of subtopics and write these around the topic, but put these subissues in boxes to differentiate from the circled main idea. (Make an effort to express each idea in one or two keywords rather than long phrases.)
c. Connect the boxes to the main topic with solid lines.
d. Repeat steps and (c), for each subtopic, generating supporting points for these ideas.
When you have finished the mind map, among topics-your ideas will be grouped
will have a visual "map" of relationships visible clusters and levels.
Mind Map 2 Cutting
34 Chapter 2 Researching
• Business Periodicals Journal citations in accounting, advertising, mar- keting, banking, computer technology, economics, finance and investments, industrial relations, management, occupational health and safety, and so on. • Compendex Plus: A computer searchable version of Engineering Index.
Compact D/SEC: Company data from annual and periodic reports filed with
the Securities and Exchange Commission for almost all public companies. • Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC): Covers education, coun-
seling, human social development, and other social science subjects.
• GPO Monthly Catalog: Bibliographic citations for government publications such as books, reports, studies, serials, and maps. Published by the Govern- ment Printing Office.
• Humanities Index: Indexes English-language periodicals covering archaeol- ogy and classical studies, folklore, history, language and literature, performing arts, philosophy, and related subjects.
• Medline: Journal citations in clinical medicine, nursing, physical therapy, pharmacology, cardiovascular health, and so on.
• Newspaper Abstracts: Citations for articles from major newspapers (Boston
Chicago Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post) with brief abstracts or annotated headlines.
• Nursing and Allied Health: Indexes a wide range of English-language jour- nals in nursing and allied health professions.
• Journal citations in psychology and psychiatry.
• Social Sciences Index: Journal citations in anthropology, economics, law and criminal justice, planning and public administration, political science, social aspects of medicine, sociology, and so on.
Hardcopy Sources The following are the major hardcopy sources of technical information found in most large libraries.
• Guides to technical literature: These include reference works that list individ- ual indexes, abstracts, journals, and so forth. Most of these guides are listed in three reference books: Ching-Chih Chen's Scientific
and Technical Information Sources (MIT Press); Eugene Paul Sheehy's Guide to Reference Books (American Library Association); and Malinowski and
Richardson's Science and Engineering Literature: A Guide to Reference Sources (Libraries Unlimited). Other hardcopy guides include the following:
American Statistics Index: Comprehensive guide to statistics published by
federal agencies.
Chemical Abstracts: List of abstracts from journals.
Computer and Control Abstracts: List of abstracts from the computer field
with many subfields represented.
Engineering Index: List of abstracts from journals.
Government Reports Announcements and Index: Comprehensive index to
Finding and Evaluating Sources 35
Index to International Statistics: Index to statistical publications of such
intergovernmental organizations as the United Nations, World Bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and International Monetary Fund. Abstracts are provided.
Index Medicus: Selective index to medical journals; interdisciplinary. NASA Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports: Index to reports.
For more general information you may also check the Reader's Guide to Peri-
odical Literature, available in most libraries.
• Professional journals: When you find an article in one of the literature guides, such as the Engineering Index, go to the main catalogue to determine whether the library subscribes to the journal. If the library does subscribe, the catalogue should establish the journal's call number and location.
Books, monographs, conference proceedings, and review series: All are
listed in the library's main catalogue under the names of authors, editors, ti- tles, subjects, and corporate authors. To find conference proceedings, you may need to know the conference title and date. Review series (such as Advances in
Bioengineering or Progress in Biochemical Pharmacology) are listed under
the series title.
• Reports: These may be listed in the library's main catalogue under author, corporate author, title, or subject, but they can usually be found as in a separate reports checklist prepared by the library and arranged by report number or government number. Be sure to check the Government Reports
Announcements and Index for a list of the government's reports on technical
literature.
I
Dissertations: These can be valuable sources of the latest information, but
dissertations are expensive and difficult to acquire. The main guide to all dis- sertations in science and applied science is the Dissertation Abstracts Interna-
tional. Volume B: The Sciences and Engineering.
• Standards and patents: This vast area of technical literature can also be accessed electronically. Consult your reference librarian.
! Product reviews: Reading about other products (or earlier versions of the prod-
uct you're working with) is a valuable source of information about the technol- ogy, user attitudes, and success rates of particular products. These reviews usually appear in trade magazines such as MacWorld, and Design News.
• Other reports, manuals, or proposals: If you must write a document in a particular format or on a particular subject, it helps to see what other writers have done. You can gather especially good information about how to write your own document by looking at the competition's work or by looking at documents on file in your own company. If you are a student, check with your instructor to see if there are sample documents on file in the department. • Proprietary sources: Most products or problems have a history of documen-
tation located in-house. Your company's files may be the best, most up-to-date, and complete source on a specific topic.
36 Chapter 2 / Researching
People Sources As you do your research, don't ignore an obvious source of
information: people. If you can identify individuals who may have valuable input for your project, ask them for their help.
• In the technical professions, one of the best ways to gather cur- rent information is to go directly to the people who are the subject matter ex- perts. You may find these people in industry, science laboratories, universities, and other locations where new research is going on. you plan your inter- views well, you can gather extensive material on your topic. This chapter dis- cusses the interviewing process on pages
• Questionnaires and surveys: If you want to know what an audience or a spec- ified clientele thinks about a subject, send a questionnaire or survey to a suffi- cient sampling of people. The key to getting good information via this method is to ask the right questions and design the surveys well (see pp.
Once you have the information in front of you, the next step is to decide if the source is an appropriate one. After many years of working in a specialized field,
CHECKLIST Evaluating Sources
• Is the source timely and current? Check the publication date of any written material you use. If the material is more than two years old, it may have been superseded by new ideas or by updates on earlier concepts. In medicine, technology, or similar disciplines, older publications often give a historical perspective on new developments, but they may no longer be authoritative sources. • Is it grounded in previous research? If the article offers no grounding in previous research and
lists insufficient references to outside sources, the author may not be familiar enough with the work already done in the field. At the other extreme, if written material is choked with outside references, the author may have nothing original to say and may be simply rehashing what others have already said. Look for a balance of external references and personal experience.
• Is it balanced and unbiased? A hallmark of poor arguments is their one-sided nature; good argu- ments usually include all possibilities and suggest why the author's view is the best alternative. D the argument well-reasoned? Be wary of articles that use emotion rather than logic to make
their points. If an author depends on emotion as the primary persuasive element, it is probably because the argument's logic is weak.
• Is the source reliable? Consider the source of the information. Does its author or publisher have reason to slant the information. Note the credentials of the author or the interviewee, and look for people who are leading experts in the who have published widely on the subject or who have had extensive experience working with the material. If possible, start with the top experts and then move to newcomers to the field who bring hard work and new ideas the discipline.
and Evaluating Sources 37
most technical professionals develop a practiced eye for what is trustworthy in that field and what is not. To evaluate sources, scan introductions, tables of contents, indexes, and headings. Look for information about the authors' backgrounds that will help you understand their expertise and bias. The Checklist for Evaluating
on the preceding page provides specific
The most effective way to learn to evaluate sources is to gather enough informa- tion on the subject to become an expert yourself. From an informed perspective, you can judge more easily the validity of others' opinions.
You will probably begin your research by ac- cessing an electronic database or search engine like Google. Such sources can yield an
ing amount of information. Unlike published sources, which generally have been through a se- ries of evaluations before publication and have been categorized and organized following a set of widely accepted rules, electronic information can be posted by anyone with access to a computer and an Internet connection. You will need strate- gies for evaluating both the usefulness and the credibility of the information. The next section, Guidelines: Evaluating Internet Resources, pro- vides basic advice for this process.
In addition to the strategies outlined in the Guidelines section, you may want to pay attention to domains that house the information you have found. Domains are the URL tags that identify the kind of server that houses a particular site. While no organization regulates Internet content for its reliability or accuracy, every domain type can offer hints about its source. That, in turn, will help you assess a site's content for its legitimacy. Com- mon domain types are described in Figure 2.2.
Tip: One way to keep in touch
with the current thinking on almost any topic is to partici- pate in electronic discussion groups. You can subscribe
to LISTSERV Internet dis- cussion groups and/or to USENET news groups. In both groups, you can join electronic conversations, by means of electronic mail, with experts and novices on topics
from architecture to quantum physics. Keep in mind that the information found through this route is sheer opinion. Use these groups to spark ideas or dis- cover interesting directions for new research. Don't use them
as for any of your ideas.
GUIDELINES Evaluating Internet Resources
• Check the electronic address. As shown in Figure 2.2, there are a variety of domains that house Internet sites, and the criteria for posting sites within these domains vary. In general, sites housed in education government or organizalion domains may be more trust- worthy than sites with the tag, which may have been developed by individuals or businesses with clear agendas and biases. However, evaluate every site, no matter what its domain, to make sure that it is trustworthy.
38 Chapter "
Evaluating continued
• Evaluate for probable usefulness. Database sources may be online versions of print sources
(although some scholarly journals are now available only online); these database sources still need to be subjected to the criteria from the section Checklist: Evaluating Sources found on page 36. you are using a keyword search through a search engine rather than a database, you are likely to be overwhelmed by the number of matches: many of these may be irrelevant, but you will need to open and read a substantial number before you can determine which keywords are turning up the most useful sources. Keep a careful log of sites that provide relevant information, since sites move frequently, and you may have trouble finding a site again.
Evaluate for timeliness. Internet sites appear and disappear frequently. Check to see when a Web site was most recently updated (this information is typically included at the bottom of the home page). If the site has not been updated in a year or more, try to find more recent information. • Evaluate authorship and sponsorship. Use the information in Checklist: Evaluating Sources on
page 36 to make judgments about the reliability of the author or sponsor of a site. a Web site has a single author, check that author's credentials: Has he published in this area? Does she have an academic affiliation? Additional Google searches will turn up information about both individu- als and organizations and help you evaluate their trustworthiness as sources.
• Gauge the purpose of the site. Some sources are intent on selling products or ideas. Others may seem to be building instance, by acknowledging opposing views either directly or through links to other sites. Still others may be determined to scare readers with shock- ing statistics or anecdotes. Make sure that the site you are using is clear about its purpose, and that you understand its biases and hidden agendas.
Figure 2.2
Domains and URLs
Typical sponsor:
Information:
Typical sponsor:
Information:
Educational institutions, colleges, or universities. Examples:
University of Michigan home page, Purdue University Libraries home page, www.lib.purdue.edu.
Tend to contain content that is informational or scholarly, or occasionally, content that advocates for specific positions and policies.
Government departments or agencies, federal government offices. Examples: U.S. Census Bureau, www.census.gov; Mammalian Gene Collection, an initiative sponsored by the National Institutes of Health,
mgc.nci.nih.gov.
While some government agencies still need to be examined for possible biases, on the whole, government sites focus on informational, scholarly, or research-oriented data on numerous
Finding and Evaluating Sources 39 subjects that impact public policy: from medical research to population demographics and statistics to immigration to political science data to environmental studies.
Note: Local government department or agency sites may have a variety of URLs. State or local government offices tend to include the state abbreviation, followed by Examples: Florida Department of State,
www.dos.state.fi.us, Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, www.icjia.state.il.us/public. As with federal government sites, local
government sites tend to present informational, scholarly, or research-oriented data on a wide range of subjects, sometimes with an emphasis on issues that are specific to a particular state or region.
Typical sponsor:
Information:
Typical sponsor:
Information:
Nonprofit organization groups, professional organizations, or in some cases, individual. Examples: American Red Cross, www.redcross.org; United Nations Children's Fund, www.unicef.org; Natural Resources Defense Council, www.nrdc.org.
Nonprofit sites sometimes include scholarship, research, or informational material, but they often tend to present their content with the goal of promoting specific positions and policies. As a result, you will need to assess each site for the inclusion of accurate, well- documented research to back up any debatable claims being made. Note that such claims may even be presented as fact, so it is wise to be judicious. Some organizations are scrupulous in their attention to offering supporting evidence, accuracy, currency, and reliability; others are notoriously biased or inaccurate.
Commercial (business) sites, for-profit organization, or corporations. Examples: Longman Publishers, ablongman.com; Amazon,
Project Bartleby, www.bartleby.com.
Commercial sites tend to be the most difficult to evaluate for reliability and should be examined very closely. Because commercial businesses are for-profit enterprises, most use Web sites to present the company's functions. However, more often than not, they do so with one main goal in mind: profit. Thus, much content functions as
self-promotion, corporate branding, or advertising for services and items available for purchase (both by the main site's company and/or by other corporate sponsors). You may find some accurate, factual data on such those sponsored by credible organizations or print publications can be regarded as reliable a great deal of content will be geared toward a company's bottom line, not scholarship or reliable data. addition, some sites seem like authoritative, unbiased sources, but the URL tag should prompt you to investigate the site. Identifying the company that provides a site's funding and checking the site links may clue you in to possible biases the content.
continued
40 Chapter 2 / Researching
Domains URLs, continued
Typical sponsor:
Information:
Typical sponsor:
Information:
While traditionally a network of sites, site hosts can vary from individuals to corporate Internet providers. Examples: Earthlink,
www.earthlink.neX; Anthro.Net Research Engine: Anthropology and
Archaeology, www.anthro.net, American Music Resource,
www.amrhome.net.
Because network sites function as networks and databases that link to other sites on a given subject, they can run the gamut in reliability, from scholarly networks of vetted online sources to one person's idiosyncratic favorite links on that topic. As with sites, these sites tend to need more verification for you to be assured of their legitimacy as sources. As with other domain types, those affiliated with well-known, legitimate organizations or print publications are the easiest to verify.
The U.S. military (examples: Official U.S. Air Force site,