Quick Start to Research

1. Quick Start to Research Here are some helpful ideas to build your research skills

3. Topic • Soft Skills Product Research is a process

4. I will be able identify different types of information I need for my research • I will be able to identify and choose quality sources • I will be able to identify bias in sources I use • I will be able to evaluate all sources I use • I will be able to generate a list of useful keywords for research • I know and can use tools and strategies to locate good sources • I know how to access and use databases Research Learning Goals

5. Think of a legal trial • What types of information could be presented at a trial? • How is each piece of evidence evaluated by the jury? Minds On

6. Primary vs. Secondary Sources • Facts vs. Opinions • Scholarly vs. Popular Types of Information

8. Why use primary sources? E.g. McMaster • Useful in history to write about the past, "as it really happened." If the sources were done by people who really lived during a period or event, they are more valuable than those written by people later. • Need to evaluate primary sources as to their legitimacy

10. What: • What is the primary source? Does the type of source match the time period? If so, is it in black and white or colour? Is it a letter? If so, is it typed, or handwritten? Who: • Who wrote the letter, took the photo or painted the painting? Can you be sure it was really that person who made it? Did they live during the time period? When: • When was the primary source created? How can you tell its age? Where: • Can you tell where the primary source was created? Why: • Why was the primary source created? Does it tell a story? Is it a love letter? Is it an order from an officer to a soldier? Is it a picture of the Rocky Mountains? Does the primary source tell you why it was created? Can you guess why it was created? Checking for authenticity

11. Secondary sources are useful sources for expert opinion on issues and events. • Need to evaluate secondary sources as to the author and their credentials to determine whether to rely on their opinion

12. Think of our legal case… Facts vs. Opinions

13. Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven • It has happened, is real or exists • Beliefs held by the majority of people in a field • Facts are extremely important because they are the true description of the events of the case • E.g. a weapon was found at the scene; fingerprints were identified (no interpretation); smoking causes cancer What is a fact?

14. Something that someone thinks about a subject • A thing that is believed to exist, to have happened, or is believed to be true • May not be the prevailing theory or overwhelming statistically (63% of people in a study did something) • E.g. a person may be thought to be “capable of the crime” in the opinion of witnesses • Jury/judge has to evaluate the degree to which they believe the opinion to be true • Opinions are only as good as the reputation and credentials of the person saying them. Are they “experts”? Are they “biased”? • E.g. Lawyers will call a psychiatrist in defence of the accused and another could be called for the prosecution. The jury believes the more credible of the two. (Take away 1) What is an opinion?

15. Scholarly: • Written by academics, professors studying/researching in the field or other experts on the topic you are studying. • Academic writing is considered to be of higher quality since they write using the language of the field. Have high reading levels and deal with specific topics. • Popular: • Written by professional writers or journalists who research the topic in order to write for a publication. Or written by the a regular citizen with no particular training. These are usually written at a lower reading level than scholarly articles. Scholarly vs. Popular

16. Found in Journals which are periodicals that summarize new work done in specific fields • Written at a high level • Peer-reviewed by others in the field before publication • No advertising; not for profit • Written by experts; professors • Include references • Heavy reading; very specific Scholarly Articles

17. Intended for a general audience/population • Written by journalists, writers, or people who may or may not have special training in the field they are writing about • Few to no citations, references • Usually for profit/full of advertising • Not peer-reviewed, but edited Magazines or Popular Media

19. Which is better?

20. Which is better?

21. What’s up with newspapers?

22. How do encyclopedias fit in?

23. A student finds information about Sir John A. MacDonald’s life and accomplishments on Wikipedia. • Primary or Secondary? • Mainly facts or opinions? • Scholarly or popular? • (Take away 2) Can you classify information?

24. Levels of editing • Fact checking in newspapers • Editors vs. authors • Peer review • Still no guarantee as to correctness; but better than no editing • Some sources are never edited: • E.g. Personal websites; some organizational websites; blogs; social media etc. Edited Sources

25. Credentials of authors? • (degrees, publications in the field, books written, book reviews) • Google them • In what type of source did you find it? • Peer-reviewed or personal blog? • Newspaper vs. Historical book How do you judge the quality of opinions?

26. Written by Stacy Schiff • Who is she? • What has been said about this book? Should you use this book?

27. http://www.stacyschiff.com/about-stacy-schiff.html • http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/books/review/Harrison-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

28. Author: Frank Dikötter • http://frankdikotter.com/ • Book review: Robert Bickers, University of Bristol • http://www.historyextra.com/book-review/book-review-%E2%80%93%C2%A0-tragedy-liberation-history-chinese-revolution-1945%E2%80%9357 • Take away 3 Should you use this one?

29. What about bias?

30. BIAS IS NEITHER GOOD NOR BAD, IT JUST IS. Non-fiction is just someone’s idea of the truth • You need to delve deeper before using the information: • Who is this author? • Is there an underlying reason for this person’s opinion? • Why should I believe what they say? • What does the author want me to think? • What does the author want me to know? • What does the author want me to feel? How to identify bias

31. THE ABCD approach • Authorship –experts, scholarly • Bias – identify it • Content – accuracy and appropriateness; good quality sources; edited, published • Date – current resources; decide whether anything may have changed since the publication of your source that makes it out-of-date • If you do find information on the Web and want to use it…evaluate it first. CRAAP test Evaluating Sources

32. One easy way to evaluate a website is to look at the URL or web address (Take away 3) Evaluating Sources

33. Keywords • Search strings • Databases and Search Engines Search strategies…How to find quality sources

34. Start with a topic in mind: • Is it known by other terms, phrases or acronyms? SAME • What Big Ideas surround the topic? BIGGER • What areas of detail might you want to focus on? FOCUS Keywords

35. http://instagrok.com • World War I • Similar: • Big Ideas: • Focusing terms: Keyword example

36. Use your keywords to develop “search strings” or combinations of terms that get you better results. • E.g. “world war I” trenches allies “mustard gas” Search strategies

37. 4. Promoting culture and arts • a. Music • b. Art • c. Drama • d. TV • e. Dance • f. Sports, Olympics • g. Authors • h. Architecture (Take away 4) What keywords may help?

38. Use grammar • “quotation marks” • Use advanced search to limit by geography • https://www.google.ca/advanced_search • Limit by type of file: • Filetype:pdf or doc • Or limit by date (not perfect) Making searches better

39. Search engines or Databases • The Web is the swimming pool full of water that is the material on the Internet. • Different tools search different parts of the pool • Different search engines give preference to different sites • Databases search materials that have been pre-selected and hidden behind a partition Search tools

40. Material in published books is not found on the web unless the books have been digitized. • Find these in the school library using eMax, the Library Catalogue. • http://hwdsb.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/506 • Information on the “Invisible Web” • The material that is not searchable by search engines or databases. • Special tools help you. Special databases; search tools like Infomine; http://infomine.ucr.edu/ What’s left?

41. Portals or doorways to sets of resources purchased by companies and sold to us. • Contain published works that have been chosen by the company for inclusion, so are generally of better quality. • Include periodical articles (journals, magazines, newspapers) but also have media and ebooks. Databases

42. HWDSB’s Virtual Library • http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/llrc/virtual-library • secondary • library • Questiaschool • ID: FC email PW: Ancaster Where do I find databases to use?

43. Databases vs. Search engines (take away 5)

44. I will be able identify different types of information I need for my research • I will be able to identify and choose quality sources • I will be able to identify bias in sources I use • I will be able to evaluate all sources I use • I will be able to generate a list of useful keywords for research • I know and can use tools and strategies to locate good sources • I know how to access and use databases Did you learn anything?