Searching for Information

STEP: Phase 3 Applying the skills now available! This final module provides the opportunity for learners to apply all of their learning to the NICE Healthcare Databases Advanced Search (HDAS).

Our ‘Building the Foundations’ modules helped users to assess their level of skill in literature searching, find out more about the resources available and start planning a search. The second phase of the project ‘Developing the skills’ supported users in applying a range of searching techniques to find relevant articles quickly and easily.

This final module in our programme encourages users to test all of the above by learning about how to apply these skills to HDAS. All modules are freely available on the eLearning for Healthcare web site, without the need to login, links to the individual modules are included below: Getting LibSmart: information literacy help for students and staff. Searching for information. Searching for Information - Introduction. Fake news: a teenage dilemma. The other day I went up to Birmingham to gauge how teenagers are getting their news and, more importantly, whether they can distinguish fact from fiction.

It is always dangerous to extrapolate from the specific experience or anecdote to a general view, and smart policy should be based on solid data. Nevertheless, I was alarmed by what we found out, and persuaded that whatever form it might take, news literacy is an area educators will need to think hard about. Media playback is unsupported on your device Fake news is a deceptive problem. For one thing, it spikes around high-profile news events like the election of Donald Trump, and the evidence of its infiltration into British culture is contested. Ambitious politicians can use the issue of fake news to raise their profile, and show themselves attuned to digital technology. Factitious: A game to test your ability to recognise fake news. Sources Hierarchy 2. Academic Sources Infographic (Monash University) Sources of information are often categorised as primary, secondary or tertiary depending on their relationship to the events described.

The characteristics of primary, secondary and tertiary sources will differ within different academic disciplines, notably between the sciences and the humanities. Sources will be designated as primary sources due to their content regardless of where they are in the dissemination cycle, or whether they are available in their original format, in microfilm or electronic format, or formally published. Primary Sources Secondary sources. How to cut down on information overload (Sheffield University)

Analysing Information from the Web. Evaluating Information Sources for Academic Essays. Finding the good stuff: evaluating your sources. Evaluating-information. Source evaluation matrix.pdf. Evaluating Sources (Worcester University) Download this page as a PDF We often speak to students who are wondering what their assignment feedback means: ‘too many websites’, ‘cite more journals’, ‘read more widely’.

How can we interpret such comments? This might be partly dependent on your subject: for example, in English Literature we might expect more books to be referenced, while in Education we might expect to see reference to Government policy documents which are found on websites. In Health and Medicine we would want to refer to the latest evidence on ‘what works’ from systematic reviews and research papers, and in Business we might expect to see company reports, statistics and financial data. In History, older information and primary sources might be expected, but in other subjects you might need to use more recent publications and more secondary sources (textbooks and articles discussing and reviewing other people’s research and theories). Research skills: Evaluating information. Evaluating information How do you know if the information you are reading is any good?

This is an important point to consider as you don't want to use inaccurate or inappropriate information in your assignments. Advanced evaluation using prompt. Search Engines. Knowing where to look: your search toolkit (Manchester University) Effective Internet Searching (Cambridge University) Identifying the right search engine The major search engines Which type of engine you decide to use will depend on what you want to use it for.

Here is a list of the most common English language search engines: Google -search for images, videos, maps, news stories, shopping, etc. Copes with spelling mistakes and translates non-English language pages. Literature Searching basics. How do I search for information? (Greenwich University) When you have an assignment to do, you could just plough straight in and start searching for information without giving it much thought, but following the following stages of successful searching should make finding the information you need a little easier.

Examine your question Before you begin looking for information, you need to understand what you are looking for. Take time to understand your research topic, or assignment question and give some thought to what you want to know: Where are the gaps in your knowledge? Ten search engines for researchers that go beyond Google. Using search engines effectively is now a key skill for researchers, but could more be done to equip young researchers with the tools they need.

Here, Dr Neil Jacobs and Rachel Bruce from Jisc’s digital infrastructure team share their top ten resources for researchers from across the web. Every click of the mouse, every search box, needs to work hard to make the best use of a researcher’s time. For each gem of a resource that a researcher discovers, there may be a dozen abandoned web pages, armies of half-read abstracts and false leads.

100 Time-Saving Search Engines for Serious Scholars (Revised) Back in 2010, we shared with you 100 awesome search engines and research resources in our post: 100 Time-Saving Search Engines for Serious Scholars. It’s been an incredible resource, but now, it’s time for an update. Some services have moved on, others have been created, and we’ve found some new discoveries, too.

Many of our original 100 are still going strong, but we’ve updated where necessary and added some of our new favorites, too. Using Google. Ten Tips for Google Searching (Northampton University) How to Use Google Search More Effectively [INFOGRAPHIC] Among certain circles (my family, some of my coworkers, etc.)

I'm known for my Googling skills. I can find anything, anywhere, in no time flat. My Google-fu is a helpful skill, but not one that's shrouded in too much mystery — I've just mastered some very helpful search tricks and shortcuts and learned to quickly identify the best info in a list of results. Sadly, though web searches have become and integral part of the academic research landscape, the art of the Google search is an increasingly lost one.

A recent study at Illinois Wesleyan University found that fewer than 25% of students could perform a "reasonably well-executed search. " Advanced Search on Google (Portsmouth University) Google search tips (Cardiff University) Live Training – Search Education – Google. With these webinars, you can improve your own search skills and learn how to bring search literacy to your school.

Browse the archive of past trainings, and make sure to follow us on Google+ to stay up to speed on the latest tips and trainings from Google. Even better search results: Getting to know Google search for education Google makes it simple to find the information you need, but there are strategies for finding higher quality sources even more easily. Using Google Scholar. Accessing and Searching using Google Scholar. How to access journal articles using Google Scholar off campus.

How to use search engines effectively: Google and beyond (Bristol University) On this page: How to use search engines, including Google, effectively Anyone can type a couple of words into a search engine and get lots of results, but are they necessarily the best results? This page aims to help you get the most out of search engines. It also has a section about the limitations of search engines, entitled Why you must go beyond Google!