2. 5 Sources of data (not just opinions) Background information Statistics Reports Studies Polls Articles 2 Interviews Questions What you need
3. Not necessary, but impressive (usually) Audio Sound clips Music Video Film clips Useful animations Pictures People Places Graphs Creative displays of statistics
5. Background information The Web Do a general Google (Bing, Yahoo, or Ask) search just to see what’s out there. Take note of what you’re finding, you’ll need to follow up on it from other non-Internet sources The Web is best used for: Finding images => Creative Commons Licensed Photos via Flickr Finding video => YouTube, Vimeo, But not so great for: Statistics Scholarly Sources But Why?
6. Frankly, the web is organized by robots not humans. It helps to understand how a search engine works: Not the best because… Search engine returns results based on key words Spiderbots collect URL’s and words from websites A server indexes them alphabetically
7. How Google’s PageRank Works Google is “democratic” Results are based off an algorithm called PageRank The most popular at the top followed by the not so popular Not all votes are created equal The more popular a site is, the more its vote counts
8. How Library Databases Work They decide what the article is about and creates tags or categories about the article. title author date A person (usually a librarian) reads the article. Searches yield very specific results based on search criteria, not popularity publisher genre subject Etc. Etc. Etc.
9. Use the Statistics Research Guide The two best databases for stats are: Opposing Viewpoints Reference Center You can limit search results to Statistics Roper Center for Public Opinion This is a polling database Stats from Web sources are ok IF they provide a good citation to where the information came from. Examples of Excellent Web Sources that provide statistics: Pew Research Center for the People and Press Politifact.com VisualEconomics.com Finding Statistics
10. For projects dealing with a public company, use company and industry databases like: Mergent Online (Company) First Research (Industry) Hoover’s (Company) Business Source Premier (Company & Industry) Bureau of Labor Statistics (Industry) InvestorEdge (Company Stock Prices) CQ Researcher (Government Reports) Finding Statistics, cont.
11. Use journal databases such as: Business Source Premier Small Business Resource Center General Business File ASAP Use terms such as “report” or “study” or “research” or “empirical” to help you narrow down articles with reports or studies in them Finding Reports and Studies
12. Don’t wait until you’re frustrated to get help. Make a 30-60 minute appointment with me to map out a research strategy a few weeks before your assignment is due. This will save you more time than you could imagine. Dana DeFebbodana.defebbo@citadel.edu 953-7699 Your time is precious, don’t waste it!
