COMM 1113– Dr. Lawrence’s Class

Hey again everybody,

I hope you found the class today fun and informative.  For those of you who missed it, or for anyone needing a refresher, here are some of the things we covered today.

Finding Books

Books are still a great source of information, especially if you’re topic is broad.  Books tend to be more credible and trustworthy, and you can cite them in your speech with confidence.  Books take awhile to write, so they aren’t the most current source of information available, and also, besides ebooks, you’ll actually have to come to the library to look at them and check them out.

In order to search for the books we own, you want to click on Find Books on the library’s website to access the UCO Library Catalog.  From there, you can perform a simple keyword search using the search box, much like you would in Google or any other search product.

Remember: the catalog searches for more than just books.  Movies, music, maps, goverment documents, microfiche, and microfilm are included in the catalog, so if you know you only want books, don’t forget you can click on “add filter: Main” after you’ve performed a search to filter out any item that is not a book.

Finding Articles

Articles from newspapers, magazines, and academic journals are another great source for information.  They are often more current than books, but they also tend to be based around a more specific topic than a book.

We have many different electronic databases available which you can use to access articles.  Many databases are geared towards a specific discipline (history, for example), but there are also more generic databases which work for most topics.  Academic Search Premier is a good example of a generic database.  To access a list of all the databases the library subscribes to, click on Find Articles from the library’s home page.

Remember: If you do not see a link for full-text access to a particular article, try and click the “Find It” button (show below) located underneath the article you want, and this will search to see if the article is available in another database.  If the article is available from another database, a link for the full-text of the article will appear in a new window.

Web Site Evaluation

Part of your assignment involves using research that’s authoritative and trustworthy.   Professors will often strongly encourage their students to utilize the library’s resources because they tend to be more credible.

There’s alot of good information that can be found on the Internet using a simple search engine like Google.  There’s alot of bad information too.  Your job as a student is to be able to tell the difference.

When you are looking at a web site you are considering to use as an information source, it’s helpful to think of yourself as an investigative reporter.  It’s your job to figure out if the web site is giving you credible information.

Here’s a link to a simple, effective guide to web site evaluation by Kathy Schrock: The Five W’s of Web Site Evaluation

Here’s a more detailed guide from the Libraries at the University of Idaho: Web Site Evaluation Criteria

That’s all for now.  Remember, if you have any questions or need any kind of assistance using the library’s resources, please visit the Ask Us page or come to the Reference Desk on the 1st floor and all of us here at the library will be happy to assist you.

Happy searching!

Jason