Research eSkills: Google Like a Librarian

Leverage your status as a PVC student "subscriber" by logging into your Maricopa Gmail while using Google Scholar. You'll authenticate yourself as a PVC student and be able to access the full text of these journals, using the library as a gateway. Once you get your search results, you'll see a "Get it @ PVCC Library" link next to articles that are available in PVC Library databases.

Here's a brief instructional video from the Suffolk Community College Library, that demonstrates how to do this. Take note of the steps she illustrates to get to the settings where you can select your library. This is critical to giving you access to the full-text of articles when they are available via the PVCC Library.

Some advice on how to use Wikipedia for research.

Now that you know how to find useful information on the visible web, how do we ensure the quality/reliability of the information we find?

Check out this brief video from Common Craft (Links to an external site.) on evaluating websites.

One way to gauge the usability of websites and all other sources, for that matter, is to apply the 5Ws.

Who? Who is the author? How are they an authority on this topic? What? What's this publication really about? How is it relevant to YOUR paper? What's the purpose of the article? To persuade or to inform? It is investigative, opinion, editorial? What is the author's tone: combative, conversational, informative? When? When was this document published? How soon after the events happened? This helps to understand the context. Where? Where was this piece published? A newspaper, journal, book, blog? Does the publication reveal something about the bias of the author or of the publisher? Why? Describe the purpose of this document? Who is the intended audience? What's the author's purpose in writing this article. Why does it enhance your paper?

Or, if you prefer, another popular tool for analyzing the reliability of information is the CRAAP Test. This tool was developed by librarians at Chico State. We're going to be using the CRAAP test for our homework this week, so take a few minutes to read and digest the CRAAP criteria. 

Google Like a Librarian - Click on the image (use Explorer or Firefox) to begin:

Use these handouts to support your source based research: