Information Literacy Lectures
Welcome to INT103: Information Literacy. This document includes most of the information you
will need for this course. Orange boxes include additional information that may be of interest to
you. Use the search feature (Cntrl+F) to find your way through this document. Some .pdf readers
allow you to comment on and highlight this document. You may find this helpful.
Compiled by Anaya Jones, Information Literacy Librarian
Martha S. Grafton Library, Mary Baldwin University
(540) 887-7085
Last Updated: December 2017
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CONTENTS
The headings in this table of contents are links. Click on a heading to navigate to that section.
TALKING ABOUT SOURCES
3
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
THE INFORMATION CYCLE
SOURCE TYPES
SOURCE PUBLICATION TYPES
SOURCE FORMAT
MENTALITY OF A RESEARCHER
3
4
8
9
11
11
PRELIMINARY RESEARCH
12
READING YOUR ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION
RESEARCH PROCESS
SEARCHING WITH KEYWORDS
BACKGROUND OR PRELIMINARY RESEARCH
12
13
14
14
BRAINSTORMING & BOOLEAN
19
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
BOOLEAN SEARCHING
BRAINSTORMING SEARCH TERMS AND WRITING SEARCHES
19
20
24
SEARCHING GLDYS
26
INTERLIBRARY LOAN
FIELD SEARCHING
SUBJECT TERMS
27
27
28
CITATION
29
WHY THOUGH?
BUT HOW?
STEPS FOR CITATION SUCCESS
ORGANIZING YOUR SOURCES
USING THE IDEAS OF OTHERS
30
30
31
35
35
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DATABASES
36
VENDOR VS. DATABASE
FINDING AND SEARCHING IN DATABASES
ADVANCED SEARCHING
METADATA
PERMALINKS
37
37
38
39
39
SCHOLARLY VS. POPULAR SOURCES
40
POPULAR SOURCES
SCHOLARLY SOURCES
40
41
SOURCE EVALUATION
43
CRAAP TEST
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
43
45
SEARCHING THE WEB
48
VISIBLE AND DEEP WEB
GOOGLE SCHOLAR
FILTER BUBBLE
50
51
52
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
53
FAIR USE DOCTRINE
PUBLIC DOMAIN
FIRST SALE DOCTRINE
CREATIVE COMMONS
54
55
55
56
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
56
REFERENCES
GLOSSARY
57
58
©CC BY-NC-SA Martha S. Grafton Library, Mary Baldwin University
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Talking about Sources
Forceful Ejection of Water by Bart Everson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Information Overload
Historically, shared information was either passed on orally or written and copied by hand. The
time involved in copying information via either method meant that shared information tended to
be important. Fast forward to today and information sharing has been improved by the invention
of moveable type (11th-century China), the printing press (15th-century), the home printer and
the internet. We now produce information at a drastically faster rate than ever before and are
able to share not only important academic discoveries but also what we ate for lunch and cat
memes.
↗
Interested in learning more about who is accessing the internet? Check out the ICT
Facts and Figures. Interested in how much information is produced every day? Check out
this Northeastern University Blog. ↙
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The barriers to publication are so much lower than they used to be (now anyone with an internet
connection can blog or tweet but in years past any published information had to pass an editorial
process that privileged the educated majority), people generally left out of the conversation of
published work now have a place in that conversation. In some ways this is great- we’re able to
hear from people with experiences that historically aren’t represented in scholarly literature
(women, people of color) but it also means that non-experts can and are creating information
and that information is just as available as information produced by someone with years of
experience in the field. Additionally, less and less of this information is subjected to a consistent
editorial process, so we have some serious issues with the quality of the information that floods
our search results.
There is tons of information and some of it is better than others. Information Overload,
Information Glut, data smog, infobesity or infoxication are all terms that refer to the problems
we have finding and selecting information in an age with just too much information. The
problem is no longer finding something, it’s finding the right thing- an increasingly harder task as
the amount of information grows and the quality is mixed.
How do we find relevant sources? Which source addresses our needs best? How can we tell
which sources are trustworthy? How do we respect the intellectual property of others? That’s
what we’re setting out to figure out.
The good news is that smart search strategies and a good understanding of sources can help you
navigate the information flood to find the right source for your information need and answer
some of the questions above, whether it’s for an academic assignment or a personal need for
information.
The Information Cycle
The information cycle describes the production of information and sources in the wake of
a noteworthy event. The information cycle acts as a guide to help you get familiar with
types of sources, the type and quality of information you’re likely to find in them, and
how long it takes to create those sources. Read on to discover the information you’re
likely to find in the time after an event occurs.
↗ Do you learn better when someone is talking you through a topic? Check out the
Information Cycle video made by University of Washington Librarians. ↙
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Event
Events can be big or small, positive or tragic, straightforward or complicated. All that is really
required is that people know it happened. In the example above, the event is the death of
Osama Bin Laden.
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Day of
Source Publication Types: Radio broadcast, Television & Internet News, Twitter, Facebook
These sources:
are updated frequently
lack detail
include who, what, when & where
can be inaccurate
are primarily written by journalists
are written for a general audience
Days after
Source Publication Type: Newspapers
These sources:
address cause and include chronology
consider context
usually quote experts
are still written by journalists
are still for a general audience
conflicting initial reports are usually resolved
Weeks after
Source Publication Types: Magazine Articles & Editorials
These sources:
•
•
•
•
•
•
discuss the impact on society
are longer format
include detailed analysis
Include interviews
can reflect editorial bias
are written for a general audience
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Months after
Source Publication Type: Academic Journal Articles
These sources:
include detailed analysis/empirical research, are often theoretical
consider the impact on society, culture & public policy
place event in historical context
have a narrow scope, use highly-technical language
include detailed bibliographies
are written by scholars, for scholars, may be peer-reviewed
Years after
Source Publication Type: Books
These sources:
include in-depth coverage and historical context
are broad overviews
might be scholarly, might be popular
may have bias
include bibliographies
either for scholars or general audience
Source Publication Types: Government Reports
These sources:
are authored by state, federal & international governments
are compiled reports and government funded research
are factual, often statistical
focus on legislation and public policy
are intended for all audiences, but may not be easy to read
Source Publication Types: Reference Material
These sources:
include established knowledge
are factual, include statistics
are not as detailed as books or journal articles
are written by scholars and specialists
are usually meant for a general audience
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As the production time for a source increases, so does the breadth and depth of the information
contained in the source. Over time, inaccuracies are generally cleared up or corrected and more
information is collected, analyzed and compiled.
Some sources take longer to produce because time is needed to formulate analysis, subject the
source to a review process, or because of format constraints. For example, Newspapers are
printed once daily and today’s papers cover yesterday’s events.
Source Types
Source types help researchers categorize sources based on the content of the source and if the
information has been processed or analyzed.
Primary
It is difficult to offer one definition for primary sources because they vary widely by discipline.
When studying history, a primary source is an account of an event by someone who witnessed it,
or an account recorded at the time of an event. In the sciences, data sets produced from
experiments are primary sources. In the Social Sciences, primary sources are census data or
statistics. In literature, novels poems and plays are primary sources. Primary sources are used as
authentic evidence.
So, a primary source is an original document created by a witness, researcher or author.
When searching for primary sources consider including one or more of these keywords:
Autobiography / Biography
Diary / Diaries
Letters
Interview
Personal Narratives
Secondary
A secondary source is a source that uses primary sources as evidence to make a point or
argument. Secondary sources may offer some analysis of the primary sources. Your papers and
many scholarly research articles are all secondary sources. If I write about something someone
else said, I’m writing a secondary source. Many publication types are often secondary, but books
and journal articles are often good examples of secondary sources.
When searching for secondary sources consider including words like:
Analysis
Comparison
Criticism
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Tertiary
A tertiary source is background information. Tertiary sources compile, analyze and summarize
multiple secondary sources. They differ from secondary sources in that they take a very broad
view of a topic, giving you just enough information to get started. Tertiary sources are not indepth or current enough for scholarly research. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources.
When searching for tertiary sources consider including words like:
Encyclopedia
Dictionary
Reference
Atlas
Textbook
When Secondary Sources Aren’t
Sources get their type from the kind of information included, but it is also partially determined
by how we as researchers use those sources. For example, a secondary newspaper article could
be used as a primary source if we wanted an example of journalism of the time period. This adds
an additional layer of complexity to determining source type.
Source Publication Types
We can also group sources based on publishing characteristics. We do this all the time without
thinking about it, but it is worth distinguishing publication type from source type (primary,
secondary or tertiary). The following sources are far from the only sources you may find in your
research, but they are the most common.
Books
Historically, a book was a written or printed source where paper is glued or sewn together and
bound. Books can now be available in electronic format. Books are longer works and may be
scholarly monographs, collections of poetry, fiction, memoirs or other information. Books are
often, but not always divided into chapters or sections. A book chapter may be a source on its
own. Some types of books to look out for:
Monograph
A scholarly book. A detailed, written study on a specialized subject written by academics for
academics.
Anthologies
Technically, you can have poetry or short story anthologies, but we’re most concerned with
scholarly anthologies. This is a scholarly work of chapters written by different authors centering
on a single topic. When information from anthologies is used, the chapter used needs to be cited
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specifically. These chapters may have been published previously as academic articles and are
gathered to present multiple viewpoints on a single topic.
Periodicals
We talk a lot about articles, but article is a pretty broad term. When we use it, we’re almost
always talking about an article published in a periodical. A periodical is any source that is
published on an ongoing, regular basis (or periodically). Originally, periodicals were published in
print but now you’ll find electronic only periodicals and periodicals that are published both in
print and electronically. Periodicals include:
Newspaper Articles
Newspapers contain hopefully factual information about events soon after they occur.
Newspapers are written for a non-scholarly audience by journalists and are published daily. In
print, newspapers are presented on large sheets of low-quality paper that are folded together.
Magazine Article
Magazines include articles written for a non-scholarly audience and are usually published weekly.
Magazine articles are popular sources. They are more in depth than newspaper stories, but they
are still written by journalists. If you pick up a magazine in print, it is printed on glossy paper and
includes many advertisements. Magazines might center on the news or may have a specific area
of interest.
Journal Articles
Journal or academic articles are serialized collections of nonfiction articles usually pertaining to
research or professional activity. Some, but not all, Academic Journal articles go through a
process called peer review. Scholarly journals are usually published a few times a year.
Academic Journal articles are written by researchers about topics within their field. If you held a
journal article in your hand, it might be printed on heavy paper but it would look boring next to a
popular magazine. These articles are geared toward a scholarly audience.
Websites
For our purposes, a website is an internet location consisting of one or more pages that contain
information that was not previously published as another source type. Electronic newspapers or
magazines, for example, should be cited as newspapers or magazines even when they are
available to you on a website.
Other Publication Types
Don’t forget reports, radio and television broadcasts, encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases,
almanacs, textbooks, thesauri, blogs, and tweets! There are plenty of other publication types we
won’t learn about in any depth here.
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Source Format
A sources’ format is the physical medium in which information is recorded. Source types and
format are related but distinct. Some source types only occur in certain formats, while others
may occur in many. For example, the format of an eBook is electronic, but the publication type is
still a book (not an eBook). Common formats you may encounter include:
Electronic /Digital
Any work that is distributed and read electronically. This includes electronic journals, pictures in
.png or .jpg format, newspapers, books, websites, blogs, vlogs, Tweets, Vines, Facebook posts,
and more as people figure out new ways to share stuff on the internet.
Print
Items that have been printed for sale and distribution. May include popular books, monographs,
and journal articles. Print items may be hardcover books, paperback books, pamphlets, booklets,
etc.
Mentality of a Researcher
Hopefully you’re not feeling overwhelmed by all this talk about sources. Plenty of people find
research frustrating. It’s certainly complicated, and doing it well requires several skills- skills that
take time to really hone. Please don’t despair, though!
The most important thing you can bring to learning how to research and this class is a willingness
to try- probably several times. Even veteran searchers don’t always try the best search first.
Really good searches often come about because we are monitoring the types of results we don’t
want that turn up in our searches and alter our searches accordingly. This process can take a bit
of time when you first start, but as you get better at it, it goes faster. The following chapters will
give you pointers on how to modify your searches in different situations, but never be afraid to
try a search and see what happens.
Also, and this is very important, ask your librarians. If you’ve tried several searches and you can’t
figure out why you’re not getting the results you need, ask a librarian. We’ve been doing for a
long time, have taken many classes specifically on how to search, and we have personal
experience with the library’s databases and the kind of information they contain. We can save
you a lot of time and you’ll learn from asking. We love to help you with your research, and we
can help you in person, over the phone, over chat, or through Blackboard’s Collaborate feature.
Librarians are at the library until 9 pm Mon-Thurs during the school year. If you’re struggling
when it’s very late, the library website has plenty of good resources and we’ll answer your e-mail
as soon as we can.
Return to Table of Contents
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Preliminary Research
Education process by Thomas Morris is a Public Domain photo
Reading your Assignment Description
Most of the time, you have a very important task before you even start your research. First, you
need to fully understand the task your instructor has set for you by carefully reading your
assignment description and identify any questions you have about the assignment to follow up
on with your instructor.
Some other information to know before you start your research: Due date (an assignment due
date tells you when you need to submit your finished assignment, but it also dictates when and
how you can work on this project. Is it due tomorrow night, or at the end of the term? Plan
accordingly), topic (Some assignments leave it up to you, others may give you a set of options, or
even set out a topic for you to research), task (are you convincing or comparing?), length (a 3
page paper and 10 page paper are very different. Which is yours?), source requirements (some
professors want to see a certain number of books or journal articles. Others don’t want to see
any web sources), citation style (you’ll need to know which style to use to cite your sources and
style
your
paper.
Some
instructors
have
additional
guidelines,
too).
↗ We’ve just gotten started. To learn more, read Understanding Writing Assignments by
the OWL @ Purdue and Understanding Assignments by the UNC Writing Center. ↙
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Research Process
The research process is the process of gathering and using information. There’s no one perfect
way to research. As you figure out what works for you, you can adapt the basic research process
to fit your needs. The research process includes everything from picking a topic to citing your
sources in your paper. Some people might go through these steps once, some might do multiple
smaller cycles, and it’s really up to you.
Make sure to start this process early. The better you get at it, the faster it will go, but you never
know when you’ll have unexpected obstacles like illness, Wi-Fi-outage, surprise work in other
classes, you name it!
Ask a question
This might be something you yourself are curious about, or your professor may have required
you to pick a topic. You might have a really specific question at this point or a general idea. That’s
all fine as long as you pick a place to start.
Background Research
Perform background research on your topic. This can help you narrow your topic to an
appropriate scope for your assignment, choose an area of interest, or gather keywords. It’s a
good idea here to write out your research question.
Plan
Use your research question brainstorm alternate keywords for each important keyword in your
research question. Use all of your amassed keywords to plan some searches using Boolean
Operators and advanced search techniques
Search!
The database you choose will depend on the source publication type you want, the needs of
your assignment, and your topic. Navigate to the tool that best fits the type of sources you need
and try some of your searches there. Based on your results, adjust your searches and try again.
Not enough results? Try broadening your search. Too many? Narrow your search.
Evaluate Your Sources
Consider: Do you have the sources you’ll need to answer your research question? Do you have
enough sources? Adjust your searches and search again.
Use and Cite
Once you’ve evaluated your sources, it’s time to use them in your paper and cite them!
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Searching with Keywords
When we communicate with other humans we follow rules of politeness and grammar that
require us to use connecting words. In some cases, these words (of, the, and, in, etc.) help
convey meaning to other humans.
When we communicate with databases, these connecting words actually get in the way of
making our meaning clear. Databases perform your searches by matching the words in your
search to the words in a record or item, so including connecting words that aren’t integral to the
meaning of your search can make your results worse. If you perform searches in both ways, you
might notice that in some situations, these connecting words don’t hurt your results, but they
never make them better. We’re going to get in the habit now of selecting only the most
important words, or keywords, from your topic or research question.
To perform keyword searches, consider your research question or topic. Underline only the
words that convey the most meaning; only the words that would have to appear in an article on
this topic for it to be relevant.
How have media portrayals of tarantulas affected perceptions of the
species?
For the above research question, the words that absolutely must be in a relevant item are media
portrayals, tarantulas, and perceptions. Without one of these words, we would be doing very
different research.
You may have been tempted to select the word affected above. Words like affected,
relationship, effect, etc. are secondary keywords. They tell us how these keywords interact and
some of the time will appear in records with the keywords. However, when we find two or more
keywords in a record with each other, it’s reasonable to assume they will have a relationship of
some kind, so these words aren’t nearly as important to your search as the main ideas. If you
choose to searches that include them, try some searches without them, too.
Background or Preliminary Research
Scholars study a discipline and their particular area of interest for years to become experts. Most
professors do, too (ask your professors what their specialty is, you might be surprised). These
same professors ask you to write papers on topics you know nothing about. Your professors may
not say so explicitly, but they expect you to do preliminary research before you write before you
even research in earnest.
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Performing preliminary research, or background research, means to consult tertiary or reference
sources to give yourself a working knowledge of a topic. These sources include broad
information about topics, including key facts, dates and established information. This working
knowledge helps you explore a topic to make informed choices about which parts of the topic
are interesting enough to research further and they can give you an idea of the kind of language
experts in a specific field use to talk about their topic that you can use as keywords later. For
example, cardiovascular is another term for heart that we wouldn't use every day but is sure to
come up in research on heart health.
These sources aren’t meant to answer the kinds of questions you’re asking in your research
projects so they shouldn't find their way into your papers or reference lists. These sources are
overviews or condensed summaries of information on a topic, not new research. They are meant
to catch you up on the basics of a topic so that you can construct better searches when you
search for books and articles.
Additionally, the bibliographies or works cited of reference sources can act as a great transition
into your research. You can look them over for likely sources for your research, but you’ll
inevitably have to do some searches for other articles and books, as reference sources rarely
include recently published sources.
The only time reference sources might be the only source you need is if you’re personally curious
about a well-established topic but don’t need information for a research project.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is enjoying more favor in academic circles than it has in the past but you’re still going
to have professors who loathe seeing it in your papers and part of that is for the reasons
outlined above; reference sources are rarely appropriate sources for the level of research and
scholarly writing you should be doing, a crowd-sourced reference source even less so. That said,
multiple studies have found Wikipedia to be mostly as accurate as traditional reference sources
(Temple & Fraser, 2014; Kräenbring, et al., 2014; Reavley, et al., 2012). Be particularly careful of
hot or controversial topics that may be more prone to malicious editing. If you use it carefully,
you can still put Wikipedia to good use in your research.
↗ Explore a Wikipedia Article of Wikipedia Articles that are more likely to be vandalized.
Read more about how Wikipedia suggests you use Wikipedia. You too can edit Wikipedia
articles or see the editing history. Check out the revision history for the article on Sally
Hemmings. Stephen Colbert did a segment on The Colbert Report about Wikipedia called
Wikiality. Watch it on Comedy Central’s Website. ↙
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See Spot Drink by jordangotcha is licensed under CC BY-ND 3.0.
As the image above of an obviously incorrect Spot the Dog Wikipedia article shows, even
innocuous articles can be edited to be incorrect, so we need to think thoughtfully about all of
our sources before we trust them.
Searching for Reference Sources
Because reference sources include general information, you’ll search for them a bit differently
than we will learn to search for articles and books. Even if your research topic is specific or
explores a nuanced topic or the intersection between topics, you’ll search the larger topics
related to your question and one at a time.
For example, if you were researching: How is the rise of social media linked to the visibility of
eating disorders? You wouldn’t type all of that into your search box. You would select the
important keywords from your topic or research question and search them one at a time, eating
disorders and then separately search for social media.
Because reference sources are broad overviews of topics, the keywords we should use to search
for them should be broad, too. Instead of Facebook, search for social media. If you didn’t have
luck with anorexia, search for eating disorders.
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There’s nothing wrong with trying a search that doesn’t work, as long as you don’t give up. When
searching for reference sources, if your search doesn’t work try going broader.
Reference Sources in GLDYS
If you’re looking for print reference sources, you’ll need to search GLDYS. Because you’re
searching the titles and descriptions of these books, you’ll want to choose even broader
keywords. Navigate to the main library page and type your keyword into the GLDYS search bar
and then add AND (dictionary OR encyclopedia). When your results appear, limit them to just
what is at Mary Baldwin University, and books. If you don’t have any results, try an even broader
keyword.
Electronic Reference Sources
Grafton library subscribes to several databases of reference materials. These databases allow
you to search and read reference information from encyclopedias and dictionaries online. Our
electronic reference holdings come in a few varieties.
First, you might find an eBook that is a dictionary. You can usually search within these books, and
you’ll be looking at sections or chapters from a single reference source.
We also have access to Reference Databases, like Credo Reference, that search hundreds of
reference titles and return all of the sections that it things are relevant to your search. Click on
Getting Started under Research in the gray navigation menu on the library’s homepage.
CQ Researcher: CQ stands for Congressional Quarterly. The articles featured in CQ Researcher
are researched by the staff of the Library of Congress for Congress people on popular, timely
issues. They differ from traditional reference sources slightly but can be great sources for you.
Encyclopedia Britannica looks like a database, but just remember that you’re only searching one
title, Encyclopedia Britannica, here.
Organizing what you know
Now that you’ve done some preliminary research, you should organize what you’ve learned, and
what you already knew about your topic. There are plenty of ways to do this (outline, sticky
notes, etc.), but a common method is with Concept or Mind Maps.
To begin, write your topic in the center of a blank piece of paper. Then, try to gather what you
know about this topic into categories-If you run out of ideas; try to answer questions about your
topic. Who is affected? When did this occur? There are plenty of helpful ways to organize your
concept maps, but they should be organized in some way. Group small pieces of information by
connecting them to larger categories or use bubbles to offer different answers to questions you
pose. See the partial example below:
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Return to Table of Contents
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Brainstorming & Boolean
Brainstorms at INDEX: Views by Jacob Bøtter is licensed under (CC BY 2.0).
Research Questions
Before you begin your academic research, you need to write a research question. Your research
question may need to be very formal and part of the material you submit to your professor or it
may be more casual and just to help you organize your searches. The process of writing your
research question forces you to think about the parameters of your search. Afterward, it acts as
the basis for your research plan, and then as you research, a guide. It is pretty easy to get off
topic, but returning to your research question can remind you what you are actually looking for.
It may also be helpful to think of your research question as the question you are answering with
your paper’s thesis statement. In your background research you read about what your topic
was, who was involved or affected, and when or where it happened. Answering these questions
can help you choose how to narrow your topic. Writing your research question outlines your
narrowed topic and answers why questions related to your topic. Why were these people in this
place at this time affected by your topic? You will answer "why" at the end of your research
process with evidence you have gathered in your research and reflection.
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It is very important that your research question fits the scope of your assignment. When writing
your research question, make sure the scope of your question complements the scope of your
paper. Four to five pages aren't enough space to dissect all of the causes of World War I, for
example. Full-length books can’t cover everything there is to be said about this topic, though one
book might cover the history (or part of it) while others cover the economic repercussions, or
the political, etc. Generally, narrowing a topic involves looking at a small part of a large topic, or
how topics interact. For a paper, you’ll want to narrow a topic like this even further.
A good research question is formed on a refined topic in your area of interest and usually
involves several different elements or concepts about your topic that you can compare, contrast,
or measure to form your own analysis. It:
requires you to look in several different places to find evidence
allows you to form your own analysis of the topic (you don't want to regurgitate an
argument found in one of your sources)
is open-ended (you do not want a question that can be answered with a yes or no, a list,
or one of a few options )
includes key terms and concepts relevant to the topic
sufficiently specific
can be answered with verifiable facts (you don't want a paper based on opinion)
Research questions are FLEXIBLE. They are good guidelines to start out your research but can
change as you do your research and discover new information about your topic. If you’re
stumped, consider these ideas suggested by Turabian (2007, p. 15-17):
How does the topic fit into a larger context?
How has the topic changed through time?
questions that reflect an agreement/disagreement with a source
compare and contrast
cause and effect
Measuring: to what extent has X impacted Y?
Process: how does X lead to Y?
Boolean Searching
Boolean searching, sometimes referred to as Boolean logic, or Boolean operators, is a way for
you to communicate to the database not only what you want to search, but how. Some
databases integrate this functionality into the basic search with drop down menus, as you can
see below from the Academic Search Complete interface. Boolean Operators are designated
words (AND, OR, NOT) that used together tell the database which words belong in your desired
results and which do not.
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Boolean search is a staple of database research. It is rare to find a database that doesn’t support
this type of search in some way, though not all databases supply you with drop down menus.
When only one search bar is supplied, you can type the Boolean operators in the bar with your
search. Boolean searches look like this:
Cookies OR Candy
Women AND Men
Typing Boolean operators in capital letters is a good habit to get into. It’s a way to remind
ourselves that these are operators and not merely keywords. Additionally, many databases will
read these words as operators regardless of capitalization but others will only read these words
as operators when in capital letters. This also means that you should not use the words and, or,
or not as keywords, because the database may read them as Boolean operators.
AND
Use AND to search for two (or more) distinct ideas you want in your results. Because each result
needs to include all search terms connected by AND, your results will be narrowed or smaller.
Tooth Decay AND Orange Juice
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In the Venn diagram above, the black circle represents the items returned for a search on tooth
decay. The orange circle represents the items returned for a search on orange juice. The
overlapping slice represents the items returned on a search for: tooth decay AND orange Juice.
Because the AND operator requires both search terms to be included, it's best used for search
terms that describe different ideas. This way, you're requiring both important, though different,
ideas to appear in your results. If you use AND with search terms that describe the same idea,
you will filter out relevant results that might have one of the search terms but not both. So, we
use different ideas with AND.
OR
Use OR to search for the same idea in multiple ways. For example, you might search: Women OR
Girls OR female when you want any of those words to appear in a record. This broadens results
and can help you find more items on a topic by accounting for variation in word choice.
(Tooth Decay OR Cavity)
In the above Venn diagram, the circles represent items returned by searches for each search
term. The blue arrows point out which results would be returned by the search: (Tooth Decay OR
Cavity
Because the OR operator requires only one of the search terms to be included, it's best used for
search terms that describe the same idea. This way, you'll get a wider array of relevant articles
without filtering out relevant articles that might only include one term. If you use OR with search
terms that describe different ideas, you won't get all results that tackle both topics. Instead,
you’ll get some results that tackle one and other results that tackle the other. This isn't a
targeted search and isn't the best way to find relevant sources. So, we use the same ideas with
OR.
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(Tooth Decay OR Cavity) AND Orange Juice
Many of our searches will be more complex, including both the AND and OR operators. In the
search demonstrated above, our results will include one or more of the following terms, Tooth
Decay or Cavity, but must include the terms Orange Juice.
NOT
Tooth Decay NOT Gum Disease
We don’t tend to use NOT very often. It excludes a word from your results. NOT can be useful
when you’ve put together a search, and it is cluttered with unrelated results or false drops
(search results that fit the parameters of the current search but are not relevant. Can be caused
by words with multiple meanings). Find a word that the unrelated items have in common and
use NOT with that word to filter those results out so that you can get to what you want most.
In the Venn diagram above, each circle represents the items returned by a search for each
search term individually. In this case, the black circle minus the section overlapped by the red
circle is what would be returned by a search for: Tooth Decay NOT Gum Disease.
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Brainstorming Search Terms and Writing Searches
Humans, regardless of the language they speak, tend to have a lot of ways to talk about the
same thing. The words woman, women, lady, girl, and female human may have different
connotations to us but to a database they effectively mean the same thing. As long as all apply to
the idea you’re looking for, you’ll miss out on good results if you only search one word for each
idea in your research question. The first step is to identify the important ideas in our research
questions, which we already did when we selected keywords.
How is the rise of social media linked to the visibility of eating disorders?
Then, for each keyword, brainstorm as many other ways to talk about that idea as you can. Some
new keywords may be more specific, some may be broader. If you haven’t yet done background
research on your topic, now might be a good time. Reference sources are often great places to
look for additional language. Don’t worry right now about which ones you think will work best.
Social Media
Facebook
Twitter
Tweet
Myspace
LinkedIn
Snapchat
Virtual Communities
Visibility
Awareness
News coverage
Media coverage
Perception
Prominence
Eating Disorders
Disordered Eating
Pica
Anorexia
Bulimia
Binge Eating
Rumination disorder
Food-avoidant
Then, it’s time to write searches with Boolean Operators and the additional keywords we have
brainstormed. When we connect words from different columns (words that describe different
ideas), we use AND. When we connect words from the same column, words that describe the
same idea, we use OR.
↑
OR
↓
Social Media
Facebook
Twitter
Tweet
Myspace
LinkedIn
Snapchat
Virtual Communities
AND
Visibility
Awareness
News coverage
Media coverage
Perception
Prominence
AND
Eating Disorders
Disordered Eating
Pica
Anorexia
Bulimia
Binge Eating
Rumination disorder
Food-avoidant
So, we might search: Social Media AND Visibility AND Eating Disorders, but this search doesn’t
incorporate any alternate keywords.
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Or: Social Media OR Facebook OR Twitter, but this search is broad and doesn’t search for all of
our main ideas.
So, let’s combine our searches: (Social Media OR Facebook OR Twitter) AND Visibility AND Eating
Disorders.
We can also add alternate keywords for the other ideas: (Social Media OR Facebook OR Twitter)
AND (Visibility OR Awareness OR Perception) AND (Eating Disorders OR Pica OR Bulimia)
When we do complex searches like this one, we should use parenthesis around the terms used
with OR. Like the order of operations in algebra, this tells the database how terms should be
grouped and can make a big difference in your results.
We haven’t learned what it does yet, but using quotation marks around keywords gives
databases very specific instructions, so don’t use them to say “This is my search” when planning.
Starting your search on a new line, or indicating the end of a comment with a colon is fine.
Return to Table of Contents
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Searching GLDYS
The search bar on Grafton Library’s home page searches the Grafton Library Discovery Service or
GLDYS for short. GLDYS is affectionately named after Mary Baldwin University’s mascot, Gladys
the squirrel.
GLDYS is an integrated search tool that allows you to look for resources in many places at once.
Not that long ago, to find the same information you would need to look in the library catalog,
article databases, and WorldCat (a database of books around the world). GLDYS allows us to pool
all of these resources for you. Now, you can search all or any combination of these resources at
once.
From the library’s home page your search defaults to searching for all types of sources from
libraries around the world. If you are only looking for a specific type of item or only want to
search for items in Grafton, you’ll either need to select the advanced search button or apply
these limiters (a feature of electronic databases that allow the user to restrict search results.
They vary by database but often include format, publication date, and subject) after you’ve
performed your search. We already know that keywords with different specificity levels are
better for different types of sources so even if you ultimately want articles and books it can be
good to search for them separately.
If you search for items at Mary Baldwin University you can access whatever results you find
instantly (or as soon as you can get to the library for physical items). This can be a good first
choice as you always have the option to open your search up to libraries worldwide later, where
you may need to request items you find through interlibrary loan.
Availability
In GLDYS, you don’t even need to open an item’s record to see if it is available. Electronic items
will have an access now button and print items will tell you if the item is available or checked out
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and the call number (a unique alphanumeric number assigned to each item in a collection as a
part of a library classification system in order to shelve and retrieve the item) where the item is
located at the bottom of the preview.
Of course, this information is available if you click on the item’s title and open the record, too.
Just look for the Availability / Holdings section.
Interlibrary Loan
When you search GLDYS for items in Libraries Worldwide, items at Grafton will say Held by: Mary
Baldwin University. However, if you explore your results, or if Grafton doesn’t own much on your
topic, you will notice results without this text. This means that another library owns the item,
and we can borrow it on your behalf (as long as it’s a print book, article, DVD or another physical
item. Some libraries are working on lending eBooks but this isn’t available yet) through a process
called Interlibrary Loan, or ILL for short.
To do so, open the record and look for the Request Item through Interlibrary Loan link in the
Availability / Holdings section. If you see a button that says Place Hold instead, we own the item.
Request your materials as far in advance as possible, as soon as you know you'll need them.
Books and other loanable materials usually arrive in 5-10 business days but may take longer. You
will get an email letting you know your books are ready to pick up at the circulation desk.
Electronic copies usually take 1-3 days to arrive but can take longer. Copies will be sent to you in
PDF format via email.
We will mail physical items (ILL and Hold) to students who live outside of Augusta County, but it
will take a few additional days to get to you.
Interlibrary loan isn’t just for GLDYS! Remember that you can request items through our article
databases, as well as through a form on the Grafton website. Look at the interlibrary loan page
on Grafton’s website for more information about ILL.
Field Searching
When information is entered into a database, it is separated into fields. Fields will vary based on
what kind of information is being entered into the database, but often include title, author, and
abstract for article databases. You can make your search more precise by specifying to the
database that only results where your keywords appear in a certain field should be returned to
you.
Field searching is often used when a piece of information may appear in a record in multiple
places, but only one of those places indicate a relevant record. For example, a search for
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Stephen King in the author field would bring back different results than a search for Stephen King
in the subject field.
Subject Terms
GLDYS uses Subject Terms to help classify items, though GLDYS just calls them Subjects. Subject
terms (or subject headings, sometimes just headings) are terms selected by librarians or
catalogers, not authors or editors, as a way of classifying items. You’ll find them in all kinds of
databases. We’ve talked before about natural variance in language and subject terms are one
way of controlling that variance (we call subject terms a controlled vocabulary for this reason).
Catalogers apply subject terms, a list of predefined, authorized words, based on what subject is
covered and only words from the controlled vocabulary are used in subject headings regardless
of which words the author has chosen. In subject headings, there is always only one subject
heading for each idea, even if English has many ways of talking about that idea.
For example, Women is a subject term, but we can talk about women using the words girls,
females, ladies, etc. There may be connotative differences, but not major ones. An author may
describe their work by saying females, but catalogers will still apply the subject term Women.
This is great news for searchers. Once you find the subject headings useful for your search, you
can search by subject heading instead of keyword! When you select the correct word from the
controlled vocabulary, you can then find all objects related to that concept with one search,
regardless of the language the authors or editors chose to use when describing their object.
Subject terms are also a great place to look for alternate keywords.
GLDYS sounds awesome! What’s the catch?
GLDYS is great for much of the research you will do, but the downside to including so many types
of sources and information in one place is that we lose sensitivity in our searches. There are
some advanced techniques that don’t work in GLDYS because there are so many sources of
information that may not always be classified or indexed in exactly the same way. Start with
GLDYS, but remember to continue on to other sources for more complicated projects.
Return to Table of Contents
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Citation
Novus Planiglobii Terrestris per Utrumque Polum Conspectus by Boston Public Library is licensed under (CC BY 2.0).
Next up, citations and plagiarism. They are related because if you don't cite work you use
properly you can be guilty of plagiarism. Please remember that it is not your goal to memorize all
of the rules to citing in APA or any other citation style. Instead, focus on using examples to form
citations with the information you have about your sources. This skill translates easily across
citation styles and should serve you well for the remainder of your academic career.
Love them or hate them, citations are a big part of scholarly research. You’ll see them at the end
of every journal article and often at the end of chapters or whole books. Also, you’re going to
have to write them.
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Why though?
First, citations are how we show our work. They help readers differentiate between the ideas of
others we are relying on and ideas we ourselves have generated. They also help our readers find
our sources, either to confirm that we have presented the information in an accurate way or to
learn more about the idea or topic we are writing about. You can do this with other sources, too.
Find an article on a subject of interest? Peruse their bibliography to see if any of the sources they
cited may be helpful for you, too.
Additionally, scholarship is a conversation. Our work relies on the work of scholars before usoften we are responding to, disagreeing with, or continuing previous scholar’s arguments or
work. Citations are part of that conversation. They show your reader whose work you are
building on, who you are replying to.
You’ve probably heard about the biggest consequence of not citing your sources: plagiarism
allegations. If citing for the reasons above doesn’t motivate you, then it might be worth your
while to learn to cite correctly in order to avoid dealing with plagiarism.
Plagiarism is the act of presenting another’s work as your own. Plagiarism can be intentional,
such as when essays are purchased and submitted as their own or text is copied and not cited.
Plagiarism is also often unintentional, such as when sources are not sufficiently cited or cited
incorrectly for the type of borrowing. Both types of plagiarism can endanger your academic
career. Professors have had a lot of practice picking it out, and the consequences can be severe:
failing an assignment, failing a class, even expulsion. The higher education community takes
plagiarism very seriously. The good news is that citing your sources correctly can save you from
those fates and we’re going to learn how.
But How?
There are two kinds of citations. In-text citations appear in the body of your paper either as a
parenthetical (information in parenthesis) or as a foot/end note. Every time you present
borrowed information, it should be accompanied by an in-text citation. This flags the idea as
borrowed and gives you enough information about the source to track down the full citation in
the list of bibliographic citations at the end of your paper. In-text citations are parenthetical in
MLA and APA, where a small amount of information identifies the source in parenthesis in the
body of your paper. Chicago uses foot or end notes instead.
Bibliographic citations are longer citations that give you all the information you need to find a
source. You need one bibliographic citation per source used (regardless of how many times you
cite the source in your paper). They appear in a section at the end of your paper called a
bibliography. This section will have different titles depending on which citation style you use.
APA titles the page References. MLA titles this page Works Cited. Chicago titles it Bibliography.
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This section should begin on a new page and follow the style guidelines for whichever citation
style you are using.
There are a handful of different citations styles and each style has its own rules for in-text
citations, bibliographic citations, and formatting. Don't stress too much about citation styles. No
one expects you to memorize all of the rules associated with a citation style. We do expect you
to be able to look up what you need to know to cite a source.
Citation Styles
Citation styles are a set of rules for academic paper writing used across specific disciplines. These
rules include accepted writing conventions, document formatting, information included in in-text
citations, and format for bibliographic citations. You should always use the style dictated by your
professor or assignment.
APA
The Citation style of the American Psychological Association is used primarily in psychology but is
also used in business, sociology, library science, and other similar disciplines. It features
parenthetical in-text citations.
MLA
The citation style of the modern language association is primarily used in English. It features
parenthetical in-text citations.
Chicago/Turabian
Chicago style was published by the University of Chicago and is used primarily in history. You can
use foot or endnotes for your in-text citations. Once you pick one you need to stick with it.
Turabian is a version of Chicago adapted for students by Kate L. Turabian. It is effectively the
same as Chicago unless you need to publish a paper or book according to Chicago’s many style
rules.
Citation styles are very formal ways of citing our sources, but not everyone uses these rules. In
more laid back settings, like websites or blogs, you may see more casual ways of crediting
sources, like linked words in the midst of pages or a list of links to other sources at the end.
Steps for Citation Success
We’re going to walk you through the steps you can use to cite a source, regardless of citation
style. Here, we are focusing on the longer bibliographic citations at the end of your paper, but
the same general rules apply to in-text citations, too.
1. Identify the publication type of the source you want to cite.
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On the surface, this is an easy step, but differentiating sources can take some practice, and some
sources, like newspapers published online, can be hard to identify. Is it a website or a newspaper
article published online? Remember that format is separate from publication type, so a
newspaper published online should be cited as a newspaper (with a URL), not a website. Other
common publication types you will cite include books and journal articles.
2. Find an example citation for the publication type of your source in the citation style you
are using.
Journal article? Using APA? Find an APA example for a journal article. Book? Using MLA? Find an
example MLA citation for a book. These are available in many places. The library’s citation guide
has handouts with common publication types in the three most used citation styles (APA, MLA,
and Chicago.) Each citation style also publishes a manual. If you cite in one style a lot, it might be
worth investing in this manual.
↗ The Owl @ Purdue is also a great resource for finding citation examples in common styles
and for tips on formatting your documents. View the APA, MLA, or Chicago pages. ↙
3. Plug the information from your source into the format shown by the example.
Write out your citation with the information from your source using the example as a guide.
Write your source’s information in the order specified by the example, using the same
formatting.
4. Double check the formatting of your citation.
Citation styles all have their own picky rules. APA likes titles in sentence case; MLA and Chicago
prefer title case. Should you write out the author’s first and middle names, or present them as
initials? Which parts of the citation should be in quotation marks or italics? Is that little dot a
period, or a comma? These rules vary by citation style and can be hard to keep track of. The
library’s citation handouts can help.
Once you’ve cited your sources, you’ll also need to format your list of bibliographic citations
according to your citation style. Most styles ask you to list citations alphabetically and to use a
hanging indent. Should your list be double or single spaced? What should you title it? Look for
this information on the library’s citation handouts or in the citation manual.
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Example
If I wanted to cite The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle
Alexander (click on the title above and then PDF Full Text to see source and follow along) and my
professor wanted me to cite my source in MLA 8th ed., I would go through the steps one at a
time.
1. Identify the publication type of the source you want to cite.
The New Jim Crow is a book. I might know this because I physically have it in my hand and it is a
collection of pages bound into a single volume, or I might be looking at it online and can see the
traditional title and copyright pages that tell me I’m looking at a book.
2. Find an example citation for the publication type of your source in the citation style you
are using.
I’ve identified my source as a book, and I know that I need to cite my source in MLA 8 th edition,
so I’m going to find an example citation for a book in MLA 8th edition. The library has a MLA 8th
edition citation handout with a book example. Here is the example.
Author(s). Book Title: And Subtitle. Publisher, Publication Year.
Bailey, Tim S., Stewart McPherson and Alastair Robertson. Carnivorous Plants of
Britain and Ireland: A Retrospective Study. Redfern Natural History
Productions, 2016.
Don’t put the hand out away just yet, we’ll still need it.
3. Plug the information from your source into the format shown by the example.
Okay, so I’m going to put the pieces of information about my source into the order outlined in
the example. The author comes first. I can see from the example that the author’s name is
inverted so that the last name comes first followed by a comma and the author’s first name:
Alexander, Michelle.
Then I list the Book’s title. The example includes a subtitle, and I have one of those here so I
know how to handle it. I’m going to separate the title and the subtitle with a colon, and I’m going
to end it with a period. I’m also going to italicize the title, as in the example. MLA calls for titles
to be in title case, which means all but the connecting words like in and the should be
capitalized.
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
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Next, comes the publisher. I have to look at the copyright page that usually follows the title page
to find this information.
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The
New Press,
Finally, I need to include the publication year and finish it all off with a period. I have multiple
copyright dates, so I’m going to do my best to choose the date that corresponds to the version
I’m looking at and citing. Since a copy published in 2010 wouldn’t include a date later than that, I
know I need to use 2012 as the publication date.
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The
New Press, 2012.
4. Double check the formatting of your citation.
Now, I’ll want to double check the picky rules against my hand out. Commas follow the author’s
last name and the publisher, but all other punctuation after each element should be periods. I
already inverted my author’s name for alphabetizing (be careful with sources with more than
one author- only the first name is inverted), and my title is in Title Case, as MLA dictates. Finally,
I’m going to double space my citation and give it a hanging indent.
Not sure how to create a hanging indent? Check out the Microsoft Office Support pages for
detailed instructions. Similar pages are available for double spacing if you need help there, too.
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The
New Press, 2012.
Ta-dah! If you’re citing other sources, make sure they are in alphabetical order in your
document, and title the page Works Cited. If this is your only source, the page should be titled
Work Cited. When you’ve done it a few times, completing this process should take you less time
than reading these instructions.
Citation Generators
The best way to get good at citing is to practice. Citation generators might sound like an easy
way out but they make mistakes, too. If you choose to use them you need to be comfortable
enough with your citation style to check the generators’ work. After all, when you turn in your
papers, you get the grade, not the generator. You may find that it’s actually easier and takes less
time to cite sources yourself once you get the hang of it. That said, citation managers can be
great for keeping your sources straight.
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Organizing Your Sources
One of the most common issues with citation happens when we don’t keep close track of our
sources. We are typing along, have this great quote to support our argument, but can’t find the
source again to cite it. This is very frustrating, but it can be avoided.
Whenever you identify information you would like to use as evidence, make sure that the
citation for the source it came from is with it. It’s a good idea to indicate if the words are from
the author, or if you’ve already paraphrased them. Citation managers, software applications that
help students and researchers automatically or manually gather and organize sources, citations,
annotations, and sometimes notes, can be helpful for this.
Some citation managers, like Citavi, allow you to create virtual note cards to help you keep track
of evidence like this, then organize it to help you better write your papers. Others, like Zotero,
help you manage your citations but don’t have this note feature.
Using the ideas of others
We cite both the words and the ideas we borrow from others. When we borrow text exactly, it
should always be in quotation marks, and when we put someone else’s ideas into our own
words, it should never be in quotation marks. Using quotation marks correctly is part of how we
communicate to our reader what, and how, we’ve borrowed.
There are a few ways to put others’ ideas into your own words. We can paraphrase, where your
borrowing uses different words by follows the same structure or we can summarize, where we
relay the points or ideas important to our research but condense the information. Either is fine,
both need to be cited with in-text citations.
When should you paraphrase? When should you cite directly?
A good rule of thumb is to only cite directly when you couldn’t relay the author’s idea any better
than they have. They have turned a great phrase, summed something up succinctly, etc.
Otherwise, their ideas should be in your words (and cited). Your instructor wants to hear your
voice in your papers.
Common Knowledge
Established, undisputed factual information does not need to be cited. This includes facts and
dates. A general rule of thumb is that if you can find the same information in a handful of
sources and they all agree, it's common knowledge. Common knowledge varies by discipline.
What is known by the majority of scientists may not be information you can safely assume others
know. When in doubt, cite.
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Databases
A database is an organized collection of information, usually searchable. Databases don’t have to
be stored on a computer or online (One example is a phonebook) but most of the ones you’ll use
are. Database is a broad term and includes databases that do specific things. A search Engine
(like Google) is a specific type of database that collects and stores information about websites. A
catalog is a database of information about items physically held in a library. A discovery service
(like GLDYS) is a database that interfaces with other databases to compile information.
It may help to think of databases as an excel spreadsheet (in many cases, you could use an excel
spreadsheet to hold a simple database) or even a table. Each column is a field and each row is an
item.
Title
Author
Abstract
Energy budgeting
Jones, Bob
Energy budgeting can…
Nabokov’s Lolita
Smith, Marsha
Lolita is most famous…
Traveling south
Wise, Vaughn
Traveling is best done…
But that’s not all. We can also talk about databases based on what publication type of sources
the database searches. eBook databases include eBooks, article databases search articles
(sometimes just journal articles, sometimes journal, newspaper and magazine articles).
General databases include resources on a wide variety of topics. Academic Search Complete and
JSTOR are two general article databases you have access to through Grafton. Subject Specific
Databases include resources on a specific subject. Usually, the name of the database identifies
its subject. For example, PsycNET searches articles and books on psychology. SOCIndex searches
articles on sociology.
Both general and subject specific databases have their purposes. A general database is a good
pick when you’re starting your research and might want to narrow your topic later, when we
don’t have a subject specific database in your area, or when your topic spans multiple subject
areas. Subject Specific databases are best to use when your topic fits neatly into the subject
defined by the database because the narrower scope can help ensure that you only see relevant
results.
Ultimately, you can search as many databases as you like. You’re welcome to search BOTH a
general and a subject specific database on your topic (and you should!) but if you’re wondering
where to start, or if you’re in a hurry and can’t search too many databases right now, this can
help you pick a database to search.
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Vendor vs. database
The databases you use for research are available to you because the library buys access to them
through Database Vendors. Some vendors manage the access to one database and the vendor
and database name may be virtually synonymous. Other vendors manage the access of many
databases. I mention this only because Vendors are often very proud of themselves and place
their name (EBSCO, ProQuest, etc.) more prominently than the name of the database you’re
searching. You want to note the name of the database you’re searching for search logs, not the
vendor.
Finding and Searching in Databases
Grafton library offers a list of databases you can search on our Databases & Resources page. You
can navigate to this page by selecting Databases & Resources in the navigation menu on the left
side of the page or by clicking on the button under the GLDYS search on the main page.
The Databases & Resources page is a list of all the databases Grafton has access too. We give you
a few options for how to find the database you need. If you know the title, you can select the
corresponding letter from the alphabetical list at the top of the page, or select the subject that
most closely matches your research to see a list of databases that include sources on that topic.
Once in the database, the interface may look different, but you should have many of the same
options you’re used to seeing in GLDYS, and a few more. Databases usually include options to
limit your searches based on if they are peer-reviewed if the full-text is in the database, the date
when the article was published, etc. You’ll also have options to search with Boolean Operators,
advanced techniques, and field searching. Explore your database and keep your eyes open for
help sections. They can contain valuable information on how different advanced techniques
work.
Keep in mind that most databases index and search fields like an item’s title, author, publication
date and abstract but very few index and search the full-text of the article. JSTOR is a notable
exception. The way you search changes when you’re suddenly searching the much larger full-text
of an article. You can be more specific, and you also want to be a bit wary. A result might be
returned because your search term appeared on page two but nowhere else.
Maybe you’re wondering why we bother with academic databases. After all, they aren’t as easy
to search as Google, they are harder to access, etc. Well, there are a few pretty compelling
reasons to search library resources. First, library databases include resources you just can’t find
on the web. This may seem unlikely, but academic journals charge hefty premiums for their
articles and aren’t about to make that content available for free. Not all of the sources indexed in
Grafton’s databases are scholarly, but items selected for inclusion in databases are much more
likely to be of high quality or peer reviewed than you’ll find in a comparable web search. Finally,
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librarians and catalogers work hard to make the information in these databases as organized as
possible so that you can use the advanced techniques you learned recently.
Advanced Searching
Phrase Searching
Berlin Wall
“Berlin Wall”
The search on the left was performed without quotation marks. You can see that the database
did exactly what we asked of it: it found articles where the word Berlin and the word Wall appear
in the article. You can see in this example that these words don't appear together. The database
has no way to know that both words together describe one idea unless we tell it. Phrase
searching, as shown on the right with “Berlin Wall” does exactly that. It tells the database we
only want results where the words appear exactly as we have typed the,- together and in this
order. This helps us get results back where either one idea is expressed with multiple words, or
where the ideas in questions are so closely related they must appear next to each other in the
record.
Phrase searching only works when we use two or more words, but the more words we put into
quotation marks the more likely we are to rule out relevant results worded in a slightly different
way. Additionally, putting other advanced techniques that allow the database to fill in a blank
(read on) or Boolean Operators shouldn’t be used in a phrase search. If you do, you’re
simultaneously telling the database to keep things the same but to also change them.
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Truncation
Truncation searches are a short cut. Instead of searching for a variety of words with the same
root by different endings, you can remove the ending a word and add the truncation symbol. The
database will fill in the blank at the end of the word and return all results with words that start
with that root, regardless of how they end.
For example, a search for child* returns results containing child, children, and childhood. Not all
root words are words themselves, though. You can truncate creative to creat*, which would also
bring back create, creation, etc.
Pruning your word too far can hurt your search. Truncating Theatrical to the* is going to bring
back a lot of words that have nothing to do with the theater. The goal is to take off enough
letters to get all of the word endings you want, but not so many that you get unrelated words.
One way to determine where to trim is to write out all of the word endings you can think of.
Child
Children
Childcare
Childlike
Then look for all the letters the words have in common. Keep those, and trim the rest. This may
seem like it would be easier to just use OR but you’ll get faster at spotting where to put your
truncation symbol, the asterisk *.
Metadata
Metadata is data about data. Information about information. It can mean different things in
different contexts, but in database searching, metadata is the searchable information about an
article or book that allows you to find it, and is divided into fields. It includes information such as
the title, author, publisher, date of publication, journal title/volume/issue, page numbers, DOI,
subject headings, etc.
Permalinks
Permalinks, stable links/URLs, permanent links/URLs, item link/URL, etc. are incredibly important.
When you search a database, the pages you are looking at do not exist permanently in the way
that other websites. The results on these pages are generated based on your search and when
you leave, the page as you’ve seen it is gone. The URL in the address bar at the top of the page
might work in a few hours or tomorrow, but many times it won’t even work that long. To get
back to your search or the item, you’ll want to find a stable link. This is a link that the database
provides that will bring you back to the page.
Return to Table of Contents
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Scholarly vs. Popular Sources
Scribe by Quinn Dombrowski is licensed under (CC BY-SA 2.0).
There are many different sources out there waiting for you to use and cite them, but we can
categorize most sources as either popular or scholarly. Both have strengths and weaknesses, but
as you might guess, scholarly sources are often preferred for academic research.
Popular Sources
Popular sources are written for a general audience, usually adults but may be aimed at juveniles
or teens. Some popular sources are subject to an editorial process, but this process is usually
only as good as the editor of the publisher. Popular sources are usually written by journalists.
Popular sources include Newspapers, Magazines, books.
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Trade Magazines / Journals
Trade journals are periodicals that center on a specific profession. It should be clear from the
title which profession they cover. Advertisements will be for specific products or companies
related to that profession. Articles in trade publications are written by experts in a field for other
people in that field. It’s worth noting that while there are journals specifically for Doctors, these
aren’t considered trade journals. They are considered academic journals. Some articles in trade
journals may be interesting and helpful, but they don’t carry the same credibility as a scholarly
article. Articles in trade journals can still be useful when researching a specific profession and the
trends within it.
Scholarly Sources
Scholarly sources are written by academics for academics. They are subject to a strict editorial
process that may include Peer Review. Because scholarly sources are written by people who
have done a lot of research on their topic and are subject to strict review processes, they are
usually more appropriate for academic papers and research. There are times when popular
sources are more appropriate (too soon for scholarly work to be published, want to send an
article describing cool phenomenon to a friend) but for the most part, you’ll be using scholarly
sources. Scholarly Sources include Monographs, Academic Anthologies, and Journal articles.
More about Journal Articles
Journal articles are one of the scholarly sources you will use most for research. Academic Journal
articles are written by researchers in a field. If you held a journal article in your hand, it might be
printed on heavy paper but it would look boring next to a popular magazine. These articles are
geared toward a scholarly audience. Some, but not all, Academic Journal articles go through a
process called peer review.
Journal articles that describe an experiment and its results are called empirical articles. You’ll
find these in the sciences. Some other terms you might hear are quantitative and qualitative.
Qualitative studies usually have to do with observation or interviews, and while helpful, don’t
give the kind of information needed to determine causation. Quantitative studies on the other
hand measure phenomenon using numbers that are often shown using charts or graphs.
Peer Review
Peer Review is an evaluation process applied to some Journal or Academic Articles. This process
is not applied to books or any other type of article, though other review and evaluation
processes may exist for those sources. Before publication, articles are reviewed by other scholars
in a field of study. To pass peer-review, articles should not only follow good experimental
procedure and be error free, but they should also reveal new information. Part of the process is
making sure that the article published adds something new to the scholarly conversation.
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Ultimately, the journal editor decides which articles are published, but editors rely on subject
experts for their opinion. This process can take several months, or as long as two years! Sources
that are peer-reviewed may also be called scholarly articles, or refereed articles. Calling an article
Academic, on the other hand, is similar to calling it a journal article. It doesn’t denote if the
article has been subjected to peer-review.
↗ Check out Peer Review in 3 Minutes video by NCSU Libraries. ↙
Sections of an Empirical Paper
Journal articles, particularly empirical articles, can be dense and time intensive to read. Knowing
what information is in each section of an article can help you navigate the article and determine
if it is relevant to your topic before you read it more carefully.
↗ Check out Anatomy of a Scholarly Article helpfully presented by NCSU Libraries. ↙
Abstract
An abstract is a short summary of a scholarly article. Abstracts are often included and indexed in
databases, even when the full-text of an article is not.
Method / Methods / Methodology
This section includes specific details of researcher’s experiment. This can include the number of
participants and any demographic information, how participants were selected, how data is
gathered, etc.
Results or Findings
This section presents the data gathered from the researcher’s experiment.
Discussion / Comments / Conclusion
This section is where the researchers discuss what the data they collected means and suggest
areas for further study.
Bibliography / References / Works Cited
A list of citations of sources referenced in the body of the article.
Return to Table of Contents
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Source Evaluation
Scales of Justice by Clyde Robinson is licensed under (CC BY 2.0).
We know that it’s important to evaluate our sources before we use them, but it’s equally
important to realize that evaluation is flexible depending on how you’re going to use a source. A
source might be inappropriate for one use, but necessary for another. For example, a woefully
out of date scholarly article on a medical technique would not be appropriate for most papers on
the subject but would be a great addition if used as an example of how this medical procedure
was performed historically.
Additionally, some sources might be better than others but sources aren’t automatically
unusable if they fall short in one area. We have to weigh sources as a whole and in relation to
how we are using them to determine if we should use them or not. Sources that score high in
the following categories are said to be credible or reputable.
CRAAP test
Librarians at CSU Chico created the CRAAP test to help us weigh our sources. CRAAP isn’t the
only test, but it’s helpful. Scholarly sources aren’t immune from evaluation, even if they tend to
score better.
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Currency
What is considered current will vary based on your topic and your field of study, but scholarship
changes fairly quickly and more recently published sources are important, particularly in the
sciences.
To weigh the currency of a source, ask:
When was the source published
How old is too old on this subject and for your project?
Relevance
The relevance of a source has a lot to do with what this source can do for you and your paper. It
may otherwise be a fine source but if it doesn’t give you any new information or information you
can use to support your research question, it won’t be much help. Additionally, a book written
with children or teens in mind is unlikely to give you the kind of information you need for an
academic paper.
To weigh the relevance of a source, ask:
Does this source give you the information you need, that you haven’t already found
somewhere else?
Is it appropriately specific and geared toward an adult or scholarly audience?
Authority
It’s important that the author who wrote your source knows what they are talking about. Some
ways we might infer that they do is if they teach on this or a related subject, if they have a body
of published work on this or a similar subject, if they have received accolades or awards for their
research, etc. It’s hard to know if someone knows what they are talking about if you don’t know
who wrote a source, so that counts against a source in this area. You may need to do some
independent searches on authors to discover some of this information.
Note on journalists: Most news sources are written by journalists, who have a lot of experience
writing but usually little with specific subjects. Theirs is a different kind of authority. It certainly
can’t stand in for decades of research experience, but journalists also aren’t just anybody. They
usually adhere to journalistic ethics and have their own research experience.
To weigh the authority of a source, ask:
Who wrote this source?
Who published it and what credentials do they have?
Are they experts in this field?
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Accuracy
The accuracy of our sources is important but can be difficult to ascertain. We’re looking at a
source to learn about a subject, after all, so we’re not in the best place to judge its accuracy.
That doesn’t let us off the hook, though. First, a source that has been reviewed (either through
peer review or through an editorial process) is more likely to be accurate. You can compare
sources talking about similar things to see if they agree and errors in spelling or grammar are a
tip-off that the author may not have taken care in creating the source.
To weigh the accuracy of a source, ask:
How accurate is the information?
Can you verify any of the facts or statements elsewhere?
Was this source reviewed or edited?
Purpose
A source created to entertain to convince may not be the best depending on your topic. Some
humor sites, like the Onion, can be hard to distinguish at first glance from a news source. These
sources are meant to amuse you or to poke fun at something and aren’t appropriate for use as
secondary sources. Poke around a websites’ about pages to see if you can learn more about why
this information is being offered. Some other issues with purpose may be harder to find. Some
people have a vested interest in convincing you one way or another. For example, environmental
information published by an oil company would be suspect.
To weigh the purpose of a source, ask:
Why was this source created?
Does the author or publisher have a vested interest in convincing me?
See the full CRAAP test in Blackboard.
Additional Considerations
Bias
Sources often display bias, even when reporting on Facts. These biases can come in the form of
the order of presented information, the information about an event not presented, or the word
choices the journalists use to describe what happened. There’s a difference between leaving and
bolting, etc.
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↗ For more information on detecting bias in the news check out this guide from the
University of Washington Libraries. Curious about which way your favorite news source leans?
Check out mediabiasfactcheck.com. Story doesn’t add up and you want to check it out? See if
snopes.com has weighed in. Take a look at this article on the Role of Gender in Scholarly
Authorship. ↙
Bias in Higher Education
Historically, men have far outnumbered women in higher education, even in places and times
where women were allowed to pursue education. While the number of women in academia has
risen, men still outnumber women and men publish more scholarly papers than women, even
controlling for their smaller numbers (West, Jacquet, King, Correll, & Bergstrom, 2013).
We tend to think of scholarly articles as the be all and end all of our academic research, but no
source should be beyond scrutiny. West, Jacquet, King, Correl and Bergstrom (2013) explore
biases we may not always consider when searching for and using academic research. What other
populations do you think are also underrepresented in scholarly literature?
When we are reading about minority populations, particularly those who have experienced bias
or prejudice, it is particularly important to consider their voices in that conversation. A scholarly
discourse about women should not be dominated by men, just as discourse about people of
color should not be dominated by white scholars.
Fake News
Beyond biased sources, there’s news that is just fake. If you can only find one source presenting
information, be pretty skeptical. Fake News sites often present falsehoods along with verifiable
information, to throw you off.
Other times, the news might not intentionally be fake, but it might be distorted from the
original. Goldacre (2011), in an opinion piece for The Guardian, relays multiple occasions in
which sloppy journalists have misrepresented a scholarly source’s findings so badly that the
meaning is completely changed. According to Goldacre (2011), Journalists “count on it being
inconvenient for you to check”. His lesson here is not to trust journalists who don’t link to their
sources. I’d add that it’s best to find your sources’ sources and investigate further if you have any
inclination the story is a bit off.
↗ Would you like to read the full story? Read Ben Goldacre’s A Case of Never letting the
source spoil a good Story. ↙
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Opinion
Opinion articles often look like news articles at first, but they are the thoughts of one person
usually guessing how something will go or the effects of something. They can be interesting and
thought provoking, but shouldn’t be taken as news or as fact. Goldacre’s article, discussed
above, is one example. In this case, Goldacre does present the facts of a few cases, but the
ultimate takeaway is his opinion and we need to weigh that for ourselves.
Return to Table of Contents
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Searching the Web
web by patchattack is licensed under (CC BY-SA 2.0).
You're no doubt already familiar with Google and many of the resources available to you on the
internet. Google's (and other Search Engine’s) noteworthy algorithms make finding something
easy, but they do nothing to help us decide what is worth using. We're going to learn how to
search Google smarter and how to evaluate what we find in a systematic way.
↗ Would you like to see these advanced Google tips in a colorful infographic? I’ve got you
covered. Check it out at Mashable. ↙
In scholarly databases, we’ve learned to use keyword searches. If you try searches using natural
language, talking to databases like they are people, you’ll often have no results. Search engines
are so vast and use such sophisticated algorithms, you’re likely to still get results with natural
language searches or searches that are full questions. However, there are a few good reasons to
continue to use keyword searches in Google.
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Content Farms are websites created with the sole purpose of climbing the algorithmic rankings
to be at the top of your search results and attracting your clicks, and therefore ad revenue. They
aren't worth it, information on content farm websites is written by non-experts who are paid
pennies to compile it (if the information isn't stolen outright from other sources). These sources
are not suitable for academic research. Your professors cringe when they see about.com,
ehow.com, wikihow.com or other content farms in your bibliographies. Sparknotes and
Cliffnotes are equally cringe-inducing.
↗ Want to see what people are searching in Google right now? ↙
When you type full questions into Google, you're playing into the hands of the people who write
metadata (data about data) for content farms. They include keywords and phrases in that data
so that content farm pages are exactly what Google (and other search engines) think you're
looking for when you ask full questions. So don't do it. Search with keywords, just like when we
search in scholarly databases. The only difference is that you can be much more specific since
there are so many more sources.
You’ll also get much better results using keywords and advanced searches than you will with
natural language searches. So even when searching the free web, continue to use keywords, just
as you have been for scholarly databases. Additionally, you can limit your searches to a specific
domain name using site:. You can use this advanced technique to limit your search to a single
domain name or any site with a specified domain extension.
site:.gov
site:cdc.gov
You can do phrase searches in Google in the same way that you would in a scholarly database, by
surrounding two or more words with quotation marks.
“berlin wall”
Use – to exclude terms as you would with NOT.
Cats -dogs
Use ~ to search for similar terms. This will include items with the keyword you searched, and
other terms Google thinks are similar.
~cats
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Use ellipses to specify currency. This isn’t perfect, but it can help.
2008…2013
You can also search just in the titles of pages with intitle:
intitle:smartphone
Google has an advanced search, usually accessible after you try a search under a gear icon, that
allows you to perform these searches and more without remembering all of the fancy symbols.
↗ Google can also do other things, ranging from very useful to mildly entertaining. Check out
this partial list to see for yourself: Pacman, Timer 1 min, Calculator, Tip Calculator, Define:
social justice, Flip a Coin, I’m feeling curious
Learn more about how Google's search works ↙
Visible and Deep Web
The internet is huge, but in our normal lives, we can only “see” the parts of the internet that
search engines index. Search engines have programs called spiders that comb the web for new
sites to offer as results to your searches, bringing back links to those sites and information about
them. We call this part of the internet the Visible Web or the Surface Web.
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But creators of sites can do a few things that make websites effectively invisible to search
engines, and therefore the general public. Creators can include norobots code in their website
files
that
excludes
these sites
from
search
engines’
gathering
efforts.
↗ You can go to any website on the internet, right click on the page and select “View Page
Source.” This is what that page looks like to your browser. This code is directions on what to
display and includes norobots code. ↙
Creators can also hide their content behind paywalls, requiring visitors to pay and log-in before
they can see the content. Library databases fall into this category. These sites that are invisible to
Search Engines are in what we call the Deep or Invisible web. They are still out there, but you
either have to know that they are there to find them or pay for access.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar can track citations in a way that none of Grafton’s databases can. Using the cited
by function, you can see which other articles cited this one. It’s another way to track research
over time and can be helpful if you’re doing in-depth research.
Google Scholar still only searches the free web. It attempts to find items on the internet that
look like journal articles, but that information still has to be available on the visible web. Google
Scholar still can’t see all the items in our scholarly databases. It’s also not perfect and often
brings back non-scholarly sources including books, websites, and blogs.
Google Scholar will sometimes connect you with an article if we have it in our databases, but this
process is inconsistent and many of the sources you find in Google Scholar are sources that we
have in the library’s resources, even if you’re not connected to a library database. However,
you’ll have to come back to the library and use the journal finder to see where we have that
source. Some people really like Google Scholar’s interface and consider this extra step time well
spent.
↗ Watch the Finding the Full Text of Journal Articles video to see the Journal Finder tool in
action. ↙
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Regardless of if or how you choose to use Google Scholar in your research, know that you’ll need
to be more wary of the sources you find there, and it shouldn’t be the only place you search.
Filter Bubble
Many sites on the web learn about you based on what you read, buy, and interact with. Amazon
does this to suggest products you’re likely to buy. Facebook does this to give you posts from your
friends it thinks you want to see most (based on who you interact with), and Google does this
based on a lot of factors. Sites are personalized in this way in an effort to give you the best
experience possible, but it can also effectively insulate you from the information you don’t seek
out, seeming to confirm opinions we already hold. When it comes to research, the filter bubble
won’t make it impossible to find information, but we may need to do more specific searches to
get at exactly what we want. Watch Eli Pariser’s Ted Talk about Filter Bubbles to learn more.
Return to Table of Contents
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Intellectual Property
0032 IP by Mark Morgan is licensed under (CC BY 2.0).
Copyright sounds complicated (it is), and is sometimes frightening (it doesn't have to be).
Copyright is a way to protect creators' (artists, writers, musicians, etc.) right to earn a living from
their work. We have rights over the things we create, and those rights extend to creative works,
things we photograph, draw, write, etc. These rights can be assigned or sold to someone else. As
good researchers and scholars, we want others to respect our intellectual property, and we want
to respect the intellectual property of others, too.
↗ Prefer a video? Check out Copyright Clearance Center’s video Copyright on Campus. ↙
Avoiding Plagiarism is part of respecting the intellectual property of others. We should always
cite when we use someone else’s idea, and be sure to properly format borrowed words with
quotation marks. Plagiarism is different from Copyright Infringement, though both are part of
intellectual property. Copyright laws protect creator’s exclusive rights to copy and sell the things
they create. These laws stimulate creative work by allowing creators the exclusive ability to make
money off of their own work.
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When you draw, paint, photograph or write something original, your creative work is protected
by copyright as soon as it is fixed in a physical format. According to copyright law, no one can
print, copy, publish or perform that material unless you give them permission or their use meets
one of a few exceptions. These copyright protections usually last for the remainder of the
author’s life plus 70 years but different situations can alter the length of copyright protections.
↗ How long copyright protections last can be complicated. Learn more at Copyright.gov ↙
There are educational exceptions that allow educators to use copyrighted works for educational
purposes in classrooms. This is why your professors can show films in class without purchasing
what are called performance rights, but showing the same film outside of class time would
necessitate paying a, usually hefty, fee.
Fair Use Doctrine
Additionally, certain uses of works are judged to be Fair Uses, according to the Fair Use Doctrine.
The fair use doctrine is an exception to copyright protections, allowing you to use a protected
work without the author’s permission. A use is judged to be fair based on four criteria:
1. Purpose of the Use
What are you using it for? If you’re making money off of the use, it’s less likely to be fair.
2. Nature of the work
Is the work factual or creative? Use of factual work is more likely to be fair.
3. Amount Used
If you use a lot of a work, or what is seen as the heart or the most important bits, your use is
less likely to be seen as fair.
4. Effect on the Market
If you hard the copyright holder’s ability to make money on their work, your use is less likely
to be seen as fair.
Do you see a trend here? The main purpose of copyright is to protect the right holder’s ability to
make a living, but only to a certain point. In circumstances where the greater good benefits from
the use of a copyrighted work, there are exceptions. This is a way of balancing the individual’s
rights with the advancement of our communities as a whole.
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Now, you may also notice that I used the word judged above. This is because, as copyright is a
legal protection, the only way you’ll know absolutely certain if your use of a copyrighted work is
fair is if the copyright holder sues you for infringement on her or his rights, and a judge decides.
I’d rather not find out, personally. This is scary, and as long as that fear of legal repercussions
inspires us to use other’s work responsibly and respect the law, it’s fine. But this doesn’t mean
that you can’t use anything you find, ever. The easiest, simplest way to use someone else's work
is to ask for permission. Many people are generous with their work and will respond to polite
inquiries about the use of their work for specific purposes.
If you can’t find a content creator, or can’t find contact information, it may be a good idea to find
another photograph (or whatever it is you’re trying to use) that will also work and see if you can
find that content creator.
It’s important to note that citing a source is not the same as getting permission to copy, print or
perform it. Citation makes it clear where the information came from so that we aren’t
plagiarizing. We should still cite when we use other’s work, but it doesn’t take the place of
getting permission to use it.
Copyright isn’t usually a...
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