How to Search Traditional Print Sources

Print sources include books, newspapers, magazines, journals, and any other hard-copy sources such as official records. Print sources generally include all tangible sources such as video or audio tapes.

Print sources are still valuable for research. While many print sources are available in an online version, many are not. Copyrighted materials that are not yet in the public domain are often available only in print versions.

Library catalogs are now generally available both in print and electronically. In other words, you can search a library catalog online to see what is available on the shelves. In many cases, you can now reserve, request transfer from a library affiliate, and even renew online.

The catalog, whether you access it in print or electronically, is the first step in selecting print sources. The contents of the library are organized by subject and by author. Some electronic library catalogs might also include a keyword search.

Encyclopedias and dictionaries can be very useful resources, especially a specialized encyclopedia such as the Encyclopedia of Aeronautics or specialized dictionary such as a medical dictionary. They are excellent ways of getting general information on your particular subject if you are not familiar with it at all.

The table of contents or an index, if any, of a book can be helpful in determining whether there is information on your question. Bibliographies, list of books, can be helpful in finding a source. There are periodical indexes which are lists by content of either one periodical or several periodicals.  These indexes would save the time of going through the individual table of contents of each journal. In some disciplines, there are specialized reference works such as the Oxford English Dictionary which not only gives the current definition of a word but also every definition the word ever had in printed documents along with more information.

Once you have found possible sources, they must be screened for validity and appropriateness. If you are researching a topic such as stem cell research where there are new studies being published regularly, a book published even five years ago is probably not appropriate. Newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals are better sources for the most recent information.

The background of the author is an appropriate way to screen for validity. Information about treatment for diseases from a physician may be more valid than information from a person without a medical background. Association with an organization is also a tool for evaluating validity.  Whether or not a publication is peer-reviewed is critical. Scholarly journals, for example, are usually peer-reviewed which means that specialists in the field have reviewed the articles for validity and significance before publishing.

Increasingly, the entire contents of libraries are online. This can be particularly helpful even if your ultimate goal is to use the print version since you can do an online content keyword search to see if the book contains information on your question.

As much as possible, screening for appropriate hard-copy sources should be done through information in the online catalogs to avoid wasting time in going to a library only to find the source was not appropriate.

What is Electronic Library Resources?

Electronic Library Resources is a link to a collection of academic research materials. It includes access to the PHSC Catalog along with other research tools. These include access to the A-Z Databases provided by the State of Florida electronic databases (a collection of data organized in a way to find specific information in the contents – may be created either in hard copy or electronic) and e-journals. 

For the most part, the Electronic Library Resources consist of electronic versions of newspapers, magazines, books and journals that were originally published in hard-copy versions. They are delivered through subscription services.

The Electronic Library Resources also includes online encyclopedias such as Funk and Wagnall’s New World Encyclopedia and a number of online only resources.

Databases such as America’s News and Academic Search Complete are made available through subscription services such as EBSCO and Newsbank.

Some databases collect articles from various publications. America’s News has articles from various newspapers around the country. 

Once you have selected a source it is important to understand exactly what you are looking at. In the Electronic Library Resources, there is an A-Z list of databases along with the subscription service that provides them.

When you are doing your Works Cited or other bibliography if using a different style such as APA, you will need to know the author, title of the article, name of the magazine, newspaper, or journal it was originally printed in, the publication information or URL and date.

All PHSC students have access to our electronic library resources. There is a direct link from within Canvas. From the Modules page, click Electronic Library Resources on the left sidebar. You then click on the blue button that says "open on another page."

Working with the Electronic Library Resources can be challenging until you get used to it. The different subscription services have different search engines.  It is important to see how the Search page is organized to properly filter prospective sources. Become familiar with the organization of the Electronic Library Resources.

The subject list is a good place to start to search all databases that might have information on your topic. Look carefully to see what information is asked for on the page. Use the little arrows to scroll for choices where indicated.

Be sure to check "Full Text" when available. Not all databases have the full text of the article.

Be sure to limit the dates of sources to get the most recent information when appropriate. Information on some topics could easily be outdated very quickly.

Keywords may be different in different databases. Be sure to use limitations and specifics when possible. For example, a search for the keyword "Atlantis" could result in sources on the resort and the movie in addition to the legend of the lost continent of Atlantis. A better keyword might be "Plato’s Atlantis" or "Lost Continent of Atlantis." While some search systems anticipate a range of possibilities, others require some trial and error searching.

The use of quotation marks tells the search engine to find both words together. For example, a search of the keywords Egyptian mummies could yield sources for mummies from South America and elsewhere, but “Egyptian mummies” should give results only for mummies that are Egyptian.

Remember that a Boolean search could be helpful. Boolean words are AND, OR and NOT. Note that they are capitalized. Some search engines will automatically insert the Boolean AND when there are two keywords entered, but sometimes you could try to include them on your own. If you wanted information on all mummies except Egyptian mummies, you could search mummies NOT Egyptian.

Filtering is critical to find sources both in the databases and in any internet research.

Remember that the Electronic Library Resources are set up so that you can search by specific database listed alphabetically, by category in the Subject list and also by database type (i.e. digital or video databases, etc.)

How to Search the Internet

Unlike print sources which are expensive to publish, the Internet provides a means to inexpensively publish. Anybody can pretty much publish anything. That is why it is particularly important to screen possible sources from the World Wide Web. There are specialized search engines such as ones for children’s sites, radio stations or images.

Another problem with sources on the Internet is that all sources look the same in the sense that they are online. In print sources, we can readily see the publication types of a book, newspaper and magazine. We have to look more carefully to understand what we are looking at online.

The web address (URL) is a good first indicator. Suffixes tell us something about the source. Examples include, .gov is a government site, .edu is an educational institution site and .com is a business.

Sources from businesses should be viewed for bias. A business website promotes a business, not necessarily providing all the information on a controversial issue. On the other hand, a business source can give valid technical information about a product.

It is important to see who is sponsoring the site. Sometimes, the name of the website will seem to present information from a certain perspective, but when we see who posted the website, it is clear that is not the case.

Unacceptable Sources

There are some websites that should not be used as sources for academic research such as blogs which are just people expressing an opinion and not presented as a knowledgeable sources. Editorial opinion either from an editor or submitted from a reader should be evaluated for bias and credibility since there is a question about whether the person is actually knowledgeable in the field. Wikis are created by people posting information. Most are not necessarily created by scholars or others knowledgeable in the field. In fact, here is a quote from the Wikipedia page “About Wikipedia:”

Anyone with Web access can edit Wikipedia, and this openness encourages inclusion of a tremendous amount of content. About 75,000 editors—from expert scholars to casual readers—regularly edit Wikipedia …

Wikipedia does have a system in place for review of content and presentation, and while they strive to edit for completeness and balance, there is the following disclosure:

Users should be aware that not all articles are of encyclopedic quality from the start: they may contain false or debatable information. Indeed, many articles start their lives as displaying a single viewpoint; and, after a long process of discussion, debate, and argument, they gradually take on a neutral point of view reached through consensus.

A standard encyclopedia is reviewed for accuracy by experts before publishing.

It’s easy to get lost in cyberspace. We could easily be in a site and then follow a link to some other site. We might think we are in a reputable site, but we are actually somewhere else.

Then, there is the situation where a variety of sources are posted within a site. Each would have to be evaluated separately.

Strategies for Searching the Internet

What you get is a result of what you ask for and how you ask for it. Search engines use categories to generate selections they present after you type in your search. Popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Generally, your computer is set up with a default to a search engine depending upon your browser. A browser is the program that gets you onto the Internet. Browsers includes Internet Explorer, Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla. There are also specialized search engines that are created to help do focused research in a specific area such as healthcare of business administration.

The key to a good search is to use a keyword or keywords that will find what you are looking for and to filter that down so that you don’t get selections you don’t want. Say you wanted to learn more about mummies from countries other than Egypt. If you type in mummies, for example, the search will result in mummies from all countries and eras, most of which will probably be from Egypt. You would have to filter manually through all to find information on other types of mummies.

Boolean searches are ways to limit selections. Boolean searches use the words AND, OR, and NOT to refine searches. If you try searching mummies NOT Egyptian, you will have a more limited list.  Note that these Boolean searches are in all capitalized. While some search engines now automatically capitalize, others don’t.

Quotation marks could also be helpful. They tell the search engine you want results for all of the words in quotation marks and not just either of the words. The results list could be very different for “breast cancer” than for breast cancer, depending upon the search engine.