This reading is about what primary sources are. Eicher tells us that primary sources are sources that are written around or at the time that an event in history occurs. These can include newspapers, diaries, letters, etc. He also tells us that although these sources can be extremely valuable it is very important to be careful when using them. It is important to make sure the writings are correct and not biased based on whether or not the writer had an “ax to grind”.

            I learned lots of new things from this reading. I never really knew what primary source meant. I learned the primary sources are extremely valuable, but must be used with extreme caution.

            This reading is very relevant to class research. This reading tells us how extremely important, and how much information can be found out by using primary sources. It also gives us questions to ask to make sure the information is accurate.

            I can apply this reading on the student level. I can use this knowledge I got from the reading to help me find, and use accurately primary sources in research projects.

            I think this reading relates a lot to what we do in our library class. The reading talks a lot about the research process and how to make sure that the source is authentic, which we talk about frequently.

Primary Sources- Primary sources have been said to provide researchers with “direct, unmediated information about the object of study (wikipedia.com)

Secondary Sources- a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere (wikipedia.com)

Tertiary Sources- A tertiary source may thus be understood as a selection, distillation, summary or compilation of primary sources, secondary sources, or both (wikipedia.com)

Archives- a place where public records or other historical documents are kept (dictionary.com)

Special Collections- houses the rare books, general manuscripts, and special collections (www.library.pitt.edu)

Open Access- access to material via the Internet in such a way that the material is free for all users to read and use (wikipedia.com)

Annotation- a critical or explanatory note or body of notes added to a text (dictionary.com)

Citation- the act of citing or quoting a reference to an authority or a precedent (dictionary.com)

Scope- extent or range of view, outlook, application, operation, effectiveness, etc. (dictionary.com)

Authority- an accepted source of information, advice, etc. (dictionary.com)

1.       Top 3 tips for searching catalog and database. 1) In catalog use advance search where you can narrow down your search results. You can narrow the results to Books, References, etc. 2) when using the advance search in the catalog it is exceptionally helpful to truncate words, use Boolean operators, and nesting techniques.  In the catalog the most popular Boolean Operators are: and. Or, not, the truncation symbol is *, and the nesting technique involves parenthesis ( ). 3) When searching in a database it is very helpful to use several different synonyms within parenthesis, Boolean Operators, and truncation. When doing this it will return much more valid results.

2.       Top 3 tips for searching in Google. 1) When searching in Google it is helpful to use an advance search also. This can allow you to specify what types of pages you want to return, help you use Boolean Operators, and nesting techniques too. 2) When looking in Google for scholarly article or scholarly reports it is helpful to use the Google Scholar application so it will only return things that end in edu or gov. 3) Google street maps are very helpful when you are looking for a location that you need to go to. The map allows you too see landmarks when you search.

3.       Good things/ Bad things about Google. Good things- Google is one of the best search engines, and have a ton of returns. Along with that Google is always making new applications and advances such as Google scholar, Google Maps, Google Earth, etc. Google has very advance technology, and is user friendly. Bad things- Google keeps your IP address and list of searches for up to two years before they make it anonymous. Google also can end up taking your picture on Google Street and you would never know that you were on the internet for everyone too see. Google also can be problematic in returning some websites that may have been relevant at one time to your search, but isn’t anymore. This usually happens because the web site changes.  

                This reading is about the “invisible web”. The authors go into great detail about how the internet and the “web” are different.

                I learned ne things from this reading. I had never really thought about the internet and the web as being two different things. Now I know that the web is several different components of the internet overlapped to create a huge web.

                This reading is very relevant to our class research, because everyone uses the internet today to do research.

                I can apply this reading on the student level. I learned through this reading to be careful when using search engines to find credible sources.

                This reading relates to my criminal law class. In that class we have been talking about how important it is to use trusted sources on the web without just assuming that Google will return only good sources.  

                This reading had to deal with the research process. Specifically O’Leary tells us how to compile annotated bibliographies. O’Leary also tells us what to include within the annotated bibliographies.

                 I learned a lot from this reading. I learned exactly what an annotative bibliography is, and what it needs to contain. I learned that for an annotative bibliography to be useful it needs to contain: Author, audience being addressed, summary, critical comments, and notes on relevance.

                This reading is very relevant to our class work. This reading will be very helpful when we begin work on our annotative bibliographies.

                I can apply this reading on the student level because it teaches me to be more organized in my research papers.

                This reading relates very much to our library class. It is very relevant because it breaks down how to do our annotative bibliographies correctly.  

Stebbin’s Reading told us about the huge issue of plagiarism. He informed us that our technological age has made us very prone to plagiarism, especially with the convenience of copy and paste on our computers. He also gave us great tips of how to avoid plagiarism early on in our research.

I did learn something new from this reading. I always thought that plagiarism was a very intentional process, but I had never really thought about accidental plagiarism. I was also surprised to read about many famous plagiarizers, like Joe Biden.

This reading was very relevant to our class research. It gives us several tips of how to avoid plagiarism during our research process that we have been studying.

I can definitely apply this reading on the student level, because I am always doing research for classes, and working on research papers. This article lets me know how careful to be in my papers to give credit where credit is due.

I feel this relates a lot to our class, because we have been learning how to do tons of research. This reminds us that even with the research it is vital to be very careful to cite our sources.

Peer review- when someone anonymously reviews the work of someone else in the same field of expertise as themselves

Stop words- A frequently used word, such as a or the, that is not indexed in webpages and thus is not used in search engine queries (dictionary.com)

Databases- A collection of data arranged for ease and speed of search and retrieval by a computer (dictionary.com)

Citation databases- are multidisciplinary databases of bibliographic information gathered from thousands of scholarly journals (dictionary.com

 Citation and Abstract databases- A searchable computer file of records containing information such as citations, abstracts, full text, or other information (dictionary.com)

Full text databases- databases that contain the entire text of journal entries

Wikis- A collaborative website whose content can be edited by anyone who has access to it (dictionary.com)

Interlibrary loan- a system by which one library obtains a work for a user by borrowing it from another library (dictionary.com)

Worldcat- is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of more than 10,000 libraries which participate in the OCLC global cooperative. It is built and maintained collectively by the participating libraries from more than ninety countries (reference.com)

Microforms- An arrangement of images reduced in size, as on microfilm or microfiche (dictionary.com)

Boolean Operators-Boolean logic is a complete system for logical operations. It was named after George Boole, who first defined an algebraic system of logic in the mid 19th century. The most commonly used operators are and, or, not