Chemistry Library Project

The intent of this exercise is to gain experience locating the best scholarly resources on  chemistry topic. The end product will be an annotated bibliography consisting of four items, two articles and two web sites.

There are four steps to the research process:

1. Thesis or topic statement.       

Define your thesis in a brief, focused statement. If you don't know what you're looking for, you will not recognize it when you find it.  As you examine the resources on your topic you may  either broaden or narrow the topic statement.

Topic Statement:  _______________________________________________________________

2. Identify keywords.
       You will use them to search in the subject, keyword, title, abstract or text fields to locate material on your topic.  Do not use common words such as: the, with, when, if, effects,

Keywords:    ______________   ________________        _______________   ________________

 
3. Select resources to locate material
       Central Search searches multiple databases for scholarly articles and also CLICnet for books on your topic. There are additional databases not included in Central Search that may be useful for your topic.  See them listed on the Work Sheet below.

If you are unable to locate scholarly journal articles focused on your topic make an appointment with the Science Liaison Reference Librarian, Earl Belisle at 651-962-5004 or embelisle@stthomas.edu, to determine the best search strategy and/or database(s) to use.

4. Evaluate and select the best material
      After you’ve gathered material select the best articles and web sites using the following six criteria for evaluating resources:

Authority
       Who is responsible for the work? (author, editor)
        What are their qualifications?     (degrees, associations, affiliations)

Currency    (When was it written and updated?)

Coverage
         What is the focus of the work?
         What aspects are covered and not covered?
         If it’s a web site is navigation within the web site clear?

Accuracy
         Are there references available for cross checking?
         Are sources of information listed for factual data?

Objectivity
         Are biases clearly stated? (political, ideological or funding)
         Are affiliations clearly noted?
         Who is the intended audience?
         Is there an introduction that explains these points?

Relevancy
         It is research or commentary, primary or secondary?
         Is this the best article or web site on the topic?

Worksheet

Please locate two scholarly articles on your topic by searching one of the following databases. After you have located several articles use the evaluation criteria in Step 4 above to select the best two articles. 

Locating Journal articles on your topic:
Central Search  searches across multiple databases including CLICnet. Select Chemistry from the list of subjects in blue to locate material related to your topic.  Enter your Keywords in the Central Search box to search the Chemistry databases included in Central Search. For more material choose one of the Databases listed below the Central Search box.  

Applied Science and Technology
 Coverage dates:  Indexing 1983+, Abstracting 1993+, “select” Full Text 1997+ Look here for fast, convenient access to the most important sources in Chemical industry-Environmental aspects  |  Hazardous waste minimization  |  Sustainable development  |  Environmental chemistry  | Chemical research-United States  |  much of it from peer-reviewed journals.   

Royal Society of Chemistry
The RSC is the largest organization in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences.  Their in depth articles are aimed at upper division, graduate and professions levels not the lower division level. 

AGRICOLA
AGRICOLA provides citations to agricultural literature.

For each scholarly article note:
Author(s)____________________________________________________________________

Article Title __________________________________________________________________

Name of the Journal_______________________________________________

Issue Date ____________________  Volume ___  Issue Number ____ Pages _____

Locating Web sites on your topic: 
Since anyone can have a web site the evaluation criteria listed in Step 4 above are even more important for evaluating web sites than journal articles. You need to locate 2 web sites.

If you find what you need on Google fine.  But Google does not search the entire Internet.  Google only searches the web pages in the Google database.  If you do not find what you want on Google try searching Dogpile.  Dogpile searches several search engines at once much like Central Search searches several databases at once.

Use the keywords from your topic statement to search Dogpile.

1.      Check the Dogpile results for non-Google hits.
2.      Select a web site that looks good.
3.      Answer the following questions:

1.      Can you tell who is responsible for the web page?  

2.      What are their credentials?    

3.      Would you use this Web site for research? 

4.      Are there additional links to pursue?

5.      When the page was last updated?

 

For each web site note:

Author, Moderator, or other responsible person or organization:

________________________________________________________________________________

 Last Updated:_____________ Title of the site:__________________________________________

URL:____________________________________________________________________________

Date of Access:____________________   (Month, Day, Year), Other identifying information if any.

Please send comments or Questions,  to:
Earl Belisle, Science Liaison Librarian
Updated 11/16/07
EMB