Introduction to information researching for a UCLA Freshman course, "Frontiers in Human Aging." This seminar is titled: Protecting Older Adults: Violence, Crime, Safety, and Prevention.
REV. 4/26/10 RICHARDSON: Protecting Older Adults: Violence, Crime, Safety, and Prevention Welcome! Intro self... How many have been in Powell Lib before? As I’ve mentioned before in GE80, this is a very large & confusing library system - 13 libraries; >8 mil. Vols. & it can take lots of time to figure out how it works. In Fall and Winter Quarters I know you got lots of excellent & useful information on various aspects of doing research for papers. I’m hoping that at the end of today’s class you’ll be even more powerful information literate researchers, so you can identify, select & locate the most useful information for your research papers for this class & for other purposes.
¼ sheet w/urls brown 1/2 sheet--how to find... CSA Library map
2 Here’s what we’re going to cover today…
Ok-Let’s talk a bit about your res paper assignments for this class. As I understand it, you need to research and write a paper re protecting older adults—violence, crime, safety and prevention ERIN, DO THEY ALSO NEED TO DO AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY THIS YEAR? & HOW MANY ITEMS DO THE STUDENTS NEED TO FIND THIS TIME? EMPIRICAL STUDIES? Later we’ll talk about journals, annotations, & empirical studies so you’ll know what they are Let’s work on your topics first
There are 7 basic information research steps … Recursive process… Questions?
--HAS ANYONE ALREADY BEEN LOOKING FOR INFORMATION & FOUND TOO MUCH ON YOUR TOPIC? -HOW ABOUT TOO LITTLE?
Sometimes the words we think of first for a research topic don’t really get us enough information, or they may get us too much information LET’S DO SOME MENTAL MAPPING ABOUT THIS TOPIC Financial exploitation of older people and legislative solutions to safeguard against this WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS IN THIS TOPIC?
Financial exploitation=>cheat*, money, invest*, fraud* Older people=>senior citizen*, elder* Legislation=>legislat*, laws, legal, privacy Abuse => Neglect, Violen* Safeguard=>protect* WHY DID I PUT ASTERISKS AT THE ENDS OF SOME OF THESE WORDS? Truncation Symbol!! Very imp tip--can use it in searching to save lots of time
WONDER WHEEL!!! Financial exploitation elderly
Another approach: Let’s help focus this research paper topic… 1st let’s think about a time period—2004-2009 Now, how about a geographic region? U.S. Ok, HOW COULD WE BREAK DOWN THE CONCEPT OF “CULTURAL” SO THAT IT’S MORE FOCUSED? Could use specific ethnic group or compare groups—remember to use alternative words for specific ethnic groups—e.g., hispan*, latin*, chican*, african-american*, black* Also, I’m assuming that this topic is related to older people OR, other words we could substitute, like…-WHAT WERE THEY? Senior Citizen*, Elder* So that’s the group this topic focuses on…older people of one or more ethnicities Finally, what aspect does this topic focus on? PERCEPTIONS OF ABUSE WHAT WOULD BE SOME OTHER WORD YOU COULD USE INSTEAD OF “PERCEPTIONS”?—views, feelings, attitudes
So if you used those limiters, you could focus this topic in many ways Here’s 1 idea for a hypothesis or initial argument… During a 5-year period, 2004 to 2009, there was an increased difference in perceptions of elder abuse among African-Americans and Chicanos in the U.S., due to cultural differences.
22 QUESTIONS?
THESE ARE JOURNALS, BUT WHAT IS A JOURNAL & HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM A MAGAZINE? HOLD UP A MAGAZINE & A JOURNAL… Which one of these is a journal? WHAT MAKES THIS A JOURNAL? This issue contains some of the academic conversations going on in this field.
ACADEMIC CONVERSATIONS are going on all around you in academia--some are silent, some oral -WHAT ARE THESE CONVERSATIONS? -Scholars "talk” and argue about their research silently in articles, book reviews, essays, & books, and orally at conferences, and present evidence to support their views -Other scholars respond, to agree or disagree, and also submit evidence to support their views =>By doing a research paper, you’re entering into the conversation of a field, learning who are the main conversants, what are the main arguments & where you can find information about them, pro, con, reviews of the literature, and so on
What’s the key point here? Scholars select & submit evidence to support their views, and they publish their articles in journals. But journals don’t just publish everything that’s submitted to them. Here’s how the process works…
=> PUB CYCLE/TIME LAG (due to: PEER REVIEW) -Article submitted to journal -Editor sends out to a few experts in the field for review, on editorial board of journal -These “peers” don’t know who wrote the article--they critique the content, the research process, the evidence -Options: reject, send back for improvement or to answer questions, publish -Can go on for some time This is called the peer review process. Sometimes the publications are called “refereed”. =>Effort to ensure quality & rigor, based on knowledge of experts in field… Why should you care? Instructors like Professor Richardson want to see that you’re using scholarly journal articles for your papers & peer-reviewed journals are more scholarly and respected than those that are not
OK--now you know about journals & the peer review process, but you may also want to find EMPIRICAL studies, published w/in last 5 years WHAT DOES EMPIRICAL MEAN? EMPIRICAL= “derived from observation or experiment rather than speculation or theory.” Colman Dictionary of Psychology BF 31 C65 2001. Now, how do you find useful journal articles on your topic, both empirical and others? One effective method is to use article indexes or DATABASES.
22 QUESTIONS?
There are a few freely available databases, like PubMed—HAS ANYONE HEARD OF PUBMED? There are also many hundreds of licensed or subscription databases to choose from, but how do you find them? let’s take a look… UCLA LIBRARY HOME PAGE/ARTICLE DATABASES… I’ve also tried to make it easier for you by creating a research guide with links to the most useful databases for this class. Let’s take a look at it… Scroll down to see article databases that might be useful for your papers…
-Let’s start with PsycInfo -It indexes 1300 js in psychology & related fields, as well as book chapters, books, dissertations & conf proceedings -very wide range of topics; back to 1806! -Save time by picking a db useful for your paper Check: topics covered, types of items indexed & timeframe
18 HAS ANYONE USED PSYCINFO OR OTHER CSA databases? -In this system, in fact, you can search several important databases at once Let’s add some more dbs: pais international, soc abs 1 ST tip: always try the Advanced search: lets you limit in many different ways Read screen for tips—e.g., truncation ; look for link to Help
ANYWHERE: self neglect AND ANYWHERE elder* OR senior citizen* WHY DID I PUT AN ASTERISK AT THE END OF elder & citizen? SCROLL DOWN & CLICK ON PSYCINFO LIMIT & ****CHANGE TO AND****: METHODOLOGY: Empirical (146 total; 130 peer reviewed journals)
Click on Peer Reviewed Journals tab Sort by RELEVANCE—What does this mean? Compare to Google WHAT DO THESE MEAN? References, Cited by Let’s take a look—click on title for #1: Perceptions of Elderly Self - Neglect : A Look at Culture and Cohort Filippo, Sylvia Marie San ; Reiboldt, Wendy ; White, Barbara ; Hails, Judy Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 215-231, Mar 2007 56 references GO BACK TO LIST & THEN TO #3: Differentiating Self - Neglect as a Type of Elder Mistreatment: How Do These Cases Compare to Traditional Types of Elder Mistreatment? cited by 3 later articles—Click: WHEN PUBLISHED? POINT OUT, BUT DON’T DO SEARCH: Select PsycInfo descriptors (add to Search Log): ELDERLY and SELF CARE RETURN TO RESULTS
HOW DO YOU GET COPIES OF THESE ARTICLES? UC-eLinks is the key! Online: #1: Striving for Control: Cognitive, Self-Care, and Faith Strategies Employed by Vulnerable Black and White Older Adults with Multiple Chronic Conditions Leach, Corinne R ; Schoenberg, Nancy E Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 377-399, Dec 2008 Can also email copies of online articles If not online or in paper –use REQUEST to get a FREE COPY! DON’T PAY FOR ARTICLES!
Now let’s go back to the list and look at the abstract for #5: The Devil is in the Details: Self-Neglect in Australia , & talk about annotations… 1st, WHAT’S AN ABSTRACT? Summary of item-- DO YOU SEE ANYTHING JUDGMENTAL IN THIS ABSTRACT? DOES IT SAY THAT ANYTHING IS GOOD OR BAD? IT’S DESCRIPTIVE, and this is an important part of an annotation Another important part of an annotation is some evaluative comment--your judgment on an item
Let’s go to a free site called Internet Public Library 2 & see if we can find a librarian who’s been judgmental about something…www.ipl.org That’s sort of against the rules--we’re supposed to be objective… Search: SATIRE AGING Look at Capitol Steps – click on the magnifying glass icon: CAN YOU FIND A JUDGMENT, A WORD THAT GIVES AN OPINION & EVALUATES THE SITE? THEY DO SATIRE ON SOCIAL SECURITY & MEDICARE Capitol Steps: Excellent political satire Annotations consist of BOTH description and evaluation REMEMBER: Write your annotation in your own words! DO NOT COPY & PASTE ABSTRACTS
22 QUESTIONS about annotations?
Now, just 1 more thing before you search for articles on your own… For your annotated bibs, you’ll need to cite them in APA style DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT APA STANDS FOR? American Psychological Assoc. AND HAS ANYONE STRUGGLED WITH TRYING TO DO CITATIONS CORRECTLY FOR A BIB? Well, I can tell you about some tools that will make citing much easier: KnightCite (ueses APA 5 th ed) SourceAid (uses APA 5 th ed) Both are free websites…
OK--so I hope you’ve learned how to save time and effort in information research. We talked about Your assignments Topic Narrowing/Broadening Identified, located, evaluated articles Annotating & Citing References Remember to think critically about information & even databases And… If you forget any of this, or need help…
, ask at a reference desk, send an email message, phone, or chat live with a librarian online! Thanks so much...