Leah

Vocabulary set #5

lmw8579 — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:58:51 +0000

Vocabulary Set #5
Primary sources: An original document, such as a hand written diary, original manuscripts, or items used to compile a literary document. Copies of works are not considered primary sources.
Secondary sources: works that are not original manuscripts, contemporary records, or documents associated with an event, but which analyze, evaluate, interpret, or criticize primary sources.
Archives: 1). Collections of valuable materials that are stored and preserved for historical purposes. 2). the department in libraries that collects valuable historical information. The UNCW Archives make the history of the University accessible to researchers. This department actively seeks university records, artifacts, and other primary source materials.
Special Collections: A section of the library that contains rare and irreplaceable materials, archives, manuscripts, etc. These materials must usually be requested individually and may not be checked out. Special collections is located on the second floor of the library close to the Auditorium.
“Linguistics Used in the Library”. William Randall Library. 20 Dec. 2005. U. of North Carolina at Wilmington. 21 Apr. 2009 .
Tertiary Sources: Encyclopedias, indexes, textbooks, and other reference sources which present summaries of or introductions to the current state of research on a topic, summarize or condense information from primary and secondary sources, or provide a list of primary and secondary sources of more extensive information.
“Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources.” University Libraries. 2009. U. of St. Thomas. 21 Apr 2009 .

Response to Eicher

lmw8579 — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:07:36 +0000

Response to Eicher
The article “Primary Sources: Handle with care-but DO handle” by Eicher is about the use of primary sources. Eicher shares his experiences dealing with primary sources. He describes the strengths and weakness of primary sources. They are the first accounts recorded right after an event has taken place, so everything is fresh in the mind of the one who is recording it. A weakness of primary sources is that sometimes the truth is still bent, but most of the time primary sources are the most accurate accounts of history. He gives the example of a defeated general in battle, who bent the events of the battle to justify his poor decision making. Eicher talks about how to find primary sources. You can find them in institutions known to house these particular relics of history in their archives section. Most likely these institutions are libraries, but not always. He talks about how you can use online sources to find primary documents as well.
I was unaware that primary sources could be located via the internet. It was my assumption that you would need to visit an institution to handle and look at these, sometimes very old, first accounts. You can even start by looking in the most commonly used search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Altavista, etc. He also gives the reader specific websites that may be useful in finding primary sources. Eicher goes on to say that it’s probably best to visit the institution and handle the sources personally. He states that it’s just so exciting “to hold the physical pieces that played a part in major world events” and I agree with him. There is something magical about it for some reason. I guess because it’s where we came from and how our country has come to be. If I’m ever writing a paper about the history of some subject in the future, I will definitely use primary sources. Eicher inspires me to know more of our history by studying primary sources. I find it extremely fascinating that we have been able to preserve these aspects of history and are able to make them available to the public.

Vocabulary set #4

lmw8579 — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:48:23 +0000

Definition Set #4

Open access: A worldwide movement wherein full-text scholarly articles are completely free and unrestricted to all users to read, copy, download, and distribute over the World Wide Web.

Hunter Library. “Glossary of Library Lingo.” 2009. U. of Western Carolina. 11 Apr.
.

Annotation: 1. A note that describes, explains, or evaluates; especially such a note added to an entry in a bibliography, reading list, or catalog. 2. Process of making such notes. Annotation is the end product of making such notes.

Authority: Process of maintaining consistency in names, subjects, and other access points in a bibliographic file through reference to an authority file.

Colorado State University Libraries. “Library Lingo: A Glossary of Library
Terminology.” 9 Aug. 2007. U. of Colorado State. 26 Jan. 2009
.

Citation: Bibliographic information about an item: For books, usually the author, title, place of publication, publisher, and date; For articles, usually the author, title, periodical title, volume number, page numbers, and date. Citations are what you find in periodical indexes/databases and the Randall Library Catalog, or they may be in the footnotes or list of references at the end of a book, chapter, article, etc.

Scope: The focus, depth, or breadth of the coverage of an information source.

William Randall Library. “Linguistics used in the Library.” 20 Dec. 2005. U. of
North Carolina at Wilmington. 18 Jan. 2009. .

3rd in class response/ Annotated Bib. paper 2

lmw8579 — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:46:28 +0000

Databases-Annotated Bibliography
The databases that the Randall Library provides for all UNCW students and staff is a wonderful research tool when looking for information and resources to cite in a paper. The library subscribes to databases concerning a number of subjects. Some include history, science, and behavioral databases. The library databases are an excellent resource for students of every major. I’m going to use a couple of the databases to find information on the effect of peer review on academic journal and periodical entries.
For my first set of searches, I used Academic Search Premier. My topic didn’t exactly fit under any particular subject, so I decided to use a database that is used often. For my first search, I entered (Peer review OR Criticism) AND (Academic journals OR Periodicals). I chose to use criticism with peer review because I consider peer review to be a type of criticism. I also used The Boolean operators of OR and AND. This search brought back 3,491 results. This was a large result, but I did find an article that I would probably use in my paper. It was titled, “Preferential Publication of Editorial Board Members in Medical Specialty Journals” and was number 6 on the result list. I could not locate the article in the Randall Library catalog nor was there a full-text version of it in the database. In order to gain access to it, I would need to put in a request for interlibrary loan to have another library send it to me. I liked this source because the article was specifically written to explain how peer review was effecting what got published in medical journals. Search result number two looked like I might use it. It discussed how Nature Neuroscience would begin to use peer review and how it would affect that particular journal. The article title was “Making the Most of Reviewer Resources” and this is the article that I will annotate because the other one is unavailable in Randall Library. I ruled all the other results on the first page (1-10) out because they included editorials or lists of editorials. One result was a list of people that worked on an editorial. None of the other results went into detail about the process of peer review.
For my second search on Academic Search Premier, I decided to try and broaden my search results by entering (Peer Review OR critic*) AND (Academic journals OR periodicals). I used the Boolean operators from the last search and also truncated the word critic. I used the truncation symbol in hopes that the database would bring back all words with different endings to the word critic. This search brought back 6,738 results. The result amount doubled. It brought back similar results as the last search, but a few different ones. One result which I glanced over and was included on the first search string is definitely usable. On the last search string it had been result number one and on this search string it is result number two. The title of this result was, “Mammal Review’s Web-Based Manuscript’s Submission and Peer Review System: Manuscript Central” and had a full-text link. The first search string was definitely more productive at bringing back specific resources for my thesis. This was due to the fact that the first search string was narrower than the second. All the results for the second search, outside of the ones I had already found, did not include the peer review process at all.
For my second set of searches, I used MasterFile because it is broad and would probably bring back the most results. In this database, I was trying to find a popular article to use in my paper since I had already found two scholarly articles from Academic Search Premier.
In my first search, I used Boolean operators: AND and OR. I also used the word refereed in parentheses with peer review because these two words are synonyms of one another. My search string was: (Peer review OR Refereed) AND (Scholarly Journals OR periodicals). This search brought back 304 results, one of which looked very helpful. The only downfall of the reference was that is it was a letter and I was specifically looking for articles. Most of the other results that came back had very little to do with peer review.
For my second search, I entered Peer review AND scholarly journals. I also limited my search field to just periodicals and articles. This search brought back seventeen results. I found several articles out of these results that would probably be useful. I also found some scholarly articles that looked better than the ones I had previously found. One such article was titled, “Peer Review in Scholarly Journals, Perspective of the Scholarly Community.” I also found a very usable popular article titled, “Peer Review Under the Microscope.” The articles that I choose from this search looked promising because they had peer review in their title and went into detail about the process of peer review. The other results made references to peer review, but they didn’t describe the process and its effect on scholarly journals in detail. The second search strategy for this database worked best because it was narrowed down to just periodicals and articles. The search string itself was also quite a bit broader than the first search string.

reading response to Lessig

lmw8579 — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:14:23 +0000

The reading by Lessig is about the right of filmmaker’s when it comes to using other people’s material. When can borrowing be considered “fair use” and when is it crossing the line? Jon Else, a filmmaker and professor wanted to use a clip of the Simpson’s in his documentary. The clip, which was four and a half seconds long, was going to be on a television located at the corner of the screen. Else went through the writer, Gracie films (the producing company), and finally to Fox films which is Gracie films parent company to gain permission to use the copyrighted material. He was granted permission until he contacted Fox films. Fox films claimed that they own the Simpson’s even though they don’t write or directly produce the series. They charged Else $10,000 to use the Simpson’s piece. Else was aware that he could use the clip under “fair use,” but opted to honorably ask permission. He knew there would be a disturbance if he used the clip under “fair use.” Fox films had the power, and would use it, to cut his production off and take him to court.
I was unaware that film companies had so much intimidating power. If there is a law stating that certain clips may be used under “fair use,” it should be honored. It’s amazing how greedy film companies have become, even though they make millions of dollars every year. Shouldn’t the use of material be granted by the person who created the Simpsons? The production companies would still benefit from the showing of the production. What is also disturbing is that creators no longer own their own material. Will it get so bad that writers must go through a production company to gain rights to their own work? Or are we already at that point? These companies are taking the writer’s material and possibly making tons of money off of it. That is ridiculous!! Asking a writer if you could use their work should be where the line of command ends.
This situation shows that copyrights should never be taken lightly. Students should be extremely careful to cite each and every reference, including small image clips, because the term “fair use” really doesn’t exist. As stated by Lessig, it comes down to who has the biggest legal department and pocket of funds!

2nd in-class response

lmw8579 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:20:42 +0000

Searching the catalog can be a very useful tool when trying to find sources for research. If you truncate words that have multiply endings, it can dramatically broaden your search results to include all the different words formed with all the endings that could go with that root. You simply put an asterik at the end of the root for the word that you are wanting to truncate. Another great tool to use while creating search strings in the catalog are boolean operators. These group similar words together by an OR and words that you would like to search together with an AND. Such as (cat or feline) and (food or diet) . Another useful thing is that you can search the catalog for three schools. These being UNCW, UNCP, and fayetteville. If the reference that you want is at another school, you can use interlibrary loan and they will send it to you within 3-5 business days.
Google is a search engine on the web that can also be extremely helpful with research. Google has many different settings. You can do just a basic keyword search or you can do an advanced search. When conducting researches for classes Google Scholar is very helpful. This type of search brings back only scholarly articles. If you were looking for pictures for a presentation you could use google image. The disadvantage of using Google is sometimes it will bring back results back that had nothing to do with a keyword search. It does this because its crawlers can’t keep up with the rate at which new information is being added to the web. Google also keeps a record of every search that you have ever made, so you could see using Google as a privacy issue.

Response to reading by Sherman and Price

lmw8579 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:51:32 +0000

The article, “The Internet and the Invisible Web” by Sherman and Price is about search engines and what they index. Search Engines don’t include everything that is out there on the web. This is done purposely by consciously omitting certain material and sometimes because they can’t keep up with the rate at which material is added. What search engines don’t include in their index is called the invisible web. Search Engines are getting better at including or omitting particular pages for keyword searches by having their crawlers scan pages more frequently. The World Wide Web is just one interface to the internet making up its vast network of computers.
I learned that for the most part major search engines don’t have a lot of overlap. When doing research on these search engines, I’ve always assumed that putting in the same search string in different search engines would bring back similar results for each one. In the future, I plan on using several different search strings putting each string into several different search engines to end up with the best possible results. Almost always when conducting research, I use academic databases specifically set up for scholarly institutions. These types of databases are not indexed in search engines and are considered a part of the invisible web. Very rarely do I use public articles for my research papers that are outside of scholarly review.

Response to reading by O’Leary

lmw8579 — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:17:57 +0000

“The Essential Guide to Doing Research,” by O’Leary is about how to organize references when faced with tons of material to shift through. She talks about how important it is for a student to develop their own way of note taking. Once the student has developed and is familiar with how he/she is going to organize references, the student should remain consistent to prevent confusion when compiling all the ideas together.
I have done several research papers and found myself many times to be one of those students in a mad rush to find where a particular quote was referenced from. O’Leary makes a point to say that keeping detailed notes on the references that are chosen for use is quite a pain in the neck. She goes on to state that it is well worth the pain in the neck when it comes time to actually sit down and write the paper. And, she’s right! I believe this article is extremely helpful and informative on how to conduct research in a reasonable and systematic way.
In the future, I will compile references onto multicolored note cards. I’ve always used note cards, but I appreciate O’Leary’s idea of color coded references, especially if more than one idea is coming from the same source. This can save time because the bibliographic information only needs to be written down once to indicate what color that particular reference is going to be. Students could also use symbols or a dot of colored marker before each idea if he/she did not want to use note cards.

Response to reading by Stebbins

lmw8579 — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:33:08 +0000

The reading by Stebbins, Citing Sources, Avoiding Plagiarism, and Organizing References, was about Plagiarism and how to avoid it. It is easy to plagiarize without it being your intent or even knowing that you are. Taking detailed notes of the sources you use will help to prevent mistaken plagiarism. The notes that you gather from other sources can be put into summaries, paraphrases, or direct quotes to use in your paper.
What I found interesting about the reading was that accidental plagiarism can be and probably will be punished in the same way that direct plagiarism is. It is very important for me and other students, who conduct a lot of research, to be extremely careful and to keep organized notes. In the future, I plan to implement Stebbins idea on putting material that is not my own into a different color in my notes. This way, I will be able to easily see what my thoughts are and what I will need to reference. He also suggests that only small portions of sources should be copied and pasted into my notes. Then the main ideas can be weeded out, but to remember to show that I will not be using some ideas by inserting parentheses for my own idea or a sequence of dots representing something missing. I could use these techniques in any research that I conduct and I feel that if I do they will prove to be extremely helpful.

vocabulary set #3

lmw8579 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:38:51 +0000

Vocabulary Set #3
Peer Review: Peer review is a process used for checking the work performed by one’s equals (peers) to ensure it meets specific criteria. Scholarly journals typically use the peer review process. Peer review is also known as the referee process.
Databases: Searchable list of information including citations and full-text or articles, dissertations, books, etc.
Full-Text Databases: A database that contains the full-text of articles and other publications.
Interlibrary Loan: Supports the research needs of current faculty, students, and staff usually in a college library. This service locates and provides materials not available at a certain library. Upon receipt of these materials, photocopies are mailed to campus addresses or delivered electronically via the web. Loans are made available at the Circulation desk or, for faculty, are delivered to the appropriate department.
Microforms: A term that encompasses microfiche, microfilms, and other micro-records.
-microfiche: 4×6” sheets of photographic film containing reduced images of text pages, illustrations, etc. Microfiche allows a large amount of information to be stored in a small space on a non-deteriorating material.
-microfilm: 35mm reels of film containing reduced images of pages of newspapers, periodicals, dissertations, or other documents, illustrations, etc.
Boolean Operators: Words that define the relationship between two or more terms when searching databases or the internet, such as AND or OR.
“Linguistics Used in the Library.” William Randall Library. 20 Dec. 2005. U of North Carolina at Wilmington. 25 Feb. 2009.
These are mine:
Stop Words: Are words in a search description in a database that don’t convey the main topic of the search. They are commonly used words, such as and, were, are, or but. These words are not considered and are left out of the search.
Wikis: Are databases that are open to the public. They allow users, or sometimes anyone, to create or edit any page that has already been created.
WorldCat: One of the most used databases out there. It is second on Uncw’s most used database list. WorldCat includes library resources worldwide.
Citation Databases: Databases that provide citations for other materials concerning the subject or topic searched for in the database.
Citation and Abstract Databases: Databases that provide citations to other materials and short summaries of journal articles concerning the subject or topic searched for in the database.