Research skills 1

Research Skills: Day 1

Boolean Operators

Work smarter...not harder!

Boolean operators allow you to narrow your search to specificinformation.

This can be very helpful in avoiding information overload.

Boolean Operators

Boolean Operators

The THREE most common operators are AND, OR,

and NOT.

It is often best to capitalize them when doing your search.

Boolean Operators

OR is used to join related terms. It instructs the search tool to retrieve any record that contain either (or) both of the terms you are researching.

Question: I am just interested in information on post secondary studies.

Boolean Operators

AND is used to join words or phrases when both (or all) the terms must appear in the items you retrieve. This allows for a smaller set of results and more focussed research.

Question: I'm interested in the relationship between poverty and crime.

Boolean Operators

NOT is used to exclude words from your search results. This allows you to eliminate unrelated items and it narrows your search to relevant information.

Question: I want information about cats, but I don't want to see any information about dogs.

Boolean Operators

In addition, quotation marks " " can be very useful when doing a search. If you use quotation marks you will be asking the search engine to find an exact phrase.

This is VERY handy as you are telling the computer to find something very specific, but you need to have a phrase in mind.

For the purpose of your research project, you will be required to use a minimum of 3 different websites to find your information.

Why use multiple sites? To verify your information!

NOTE: Wikipedia isNOT to be one of your sourced sites.

Works Cited Page

Why use a Works Cited page?

A Works Cited page tells your readers where you found your information. By crediting your sources, you avoid plagiarism. After all, should credit go where it is due?

Works Cited Page

In this case, as you are relying on the Internet for your research, the main information you have to make note of as you research is:

·The title of the article·The name of the author and/or editor (if applicable)·The date of creation (if applicable)·The URL (you can abbreviate the address)·The Date of access

The information is then put in the following format:

Last name, First name (of author). "Title of the Article" (in quotation marks). Date of creation. <URL> Date of access.

Even the punctuation marks must be appropriately used.

The citations are listed on your Works Cited page in alphabetical order by the first word of the citation.

Works Cited Page

Let's do a sample citation together...

Works Cited Page

Title: Challenged Books and MagazinesAuthor: Canada Council for the ArtsDate of creation: February, 2011URL: www.freedomtoread.caDate of access: April 21, 2011

What should the citation look like?

Works Cited Page

Canada Council for the Arts. "Challenged Books and Magazines." February 2011. <www.freedomtoread.ca> April 21, 2011.

Doing the Research: Finding Important Information

Finding important information relies on making inferences and connections.

You have to distinguish between FACT and OPINION.

Consider what you know about the topic, and what questions you want to answer.

Read headings and subheadings, which will help you determine the overall theme.

Remember, do NOT copy down, or highlight, everything.

Let's Practice...

As we read this excerpt together, we'll pick out the key information that might be useful later on...

Now it's your turn...

Think:·Read your article.·Highlight important information.

Pair:·You will get together with others who have read your article to share what you deemed "important".·You will copy the important points onto another page - this will be useful for an activity we are completing tomorrow.

Attachments

The Big Bang Theory - The Pirate Solution - Part 2 - Raj wor.mp4

Web Search Strategies in Plain English.mp4

challenged_books_and_magazines.pdf