PowerPoint presented to Becky Easton's English 1301 class in the Fall 2015 semester by Amarillo College Librarian Jana Comerford.

1. Finding High-Quality Sources for
Argumentative Essays
• One Library Database Article
• One Credible Web Page

2. Evaluating Web Sites
Section 1
Section 1

3. Determining Web Site Credibility
Video by Mike
Slowinski

4. Web site criteria: Authority, accuracy, relevance, timeliness, purpose
Authority
• What makes this author qualified to publish on this topic?
Accuracy
• Is this source generally consistent with other credible sources?
Relevance
• Is the information presented in the source relevant to your assignment?
Timeliness
• Is the information too outdated to be currently credible?
Purpose
• What goal is this Web site trying to achieve? To inform? To persuade? To sell something?

5. What can you learn from the Web address?
Top-Level Domains
edu = Educational institutions
Example: http://www.actx.edu
A tilde symbol ( ~ ) in the URL
indicates that page is that of an
individual.
Example:
http://www.actx.edu/~jkcomerford
gov = Government institutions
mil = Military
org, net, info = Generic
com = Commercial
Country of Origin:
United Kingdom = uk
http://www.apple.com/uk/
Canada = ca
http://coca-cola.ca/
Australia = au
New Zealand = nz
Germany = de

6. Authority
• What is the domain name?
Does it have built-in
credibility?
• Is it clear who is responsible
for the page?
• What are the
author/publisher’s
credentials?
• Is the author qualified to write
on the given topic? Why?
• Is the information from the
sources listed reliable?
http://www.ihr.org
“About” has
information about
the site sponsor.

7. Authority (cont.): Backspace to the domain name/server.
The Journal of Historical Review, Spring 1982
(Vol. 3, No. 2), page 147.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p147_Faurisson.html
Click at the end of the URL. Cursor
right once to remove highlight.
Backspace as needed.

8. Authority (cont.): Example
“The Historic Myth of Concentration
Camps”
http://pubweb.northwestern.edu/~abutz
/di/intro.html
The Hoax of the Twentieth
Century: The Case Against the
Presumed Extermination of
European Jewry
Arthur Butz
Assoc. Professor
Northwestern
University

9. Accuracy
• Are there statements you know to be
false?
• Are there references to show the source
of the information?
• Was the information peer-reviewed?
• Are there errors in spelling, punctuation,
or grammar?
• Is it consistent with what other sources
say about the topic?
• “Extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence.” Hume/Sagan

10. Relevance
• Does the information answer
your question?
• Does it meet the necessary
assignment requirements?
• Is it directed to the appropriate
audience?

11. Timeliness
• Does timeliness matter for this
topic?
• When was the information
published or last updated?
• Has newer information been
published?
• If the site provides references, how
old are they? (No references
provided.)
• Does the site contain outdated
statistics?
Page 1
Page 4

12. Purpose
• What is the reason for the website? To
sell, persuade, entertain, inform?
• Is there an obvious bias or prejudice?
• Are alternative points of view presented?
• Does the author omit important facts or
data ?
• Is the author affiliated with an
organization?
• If advertising appears on the page, is it
differentiated from the informational
content?

13. Opposing Viewpoints
Resource Center
Section 2
Pro Con
OVRC

14. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center (Gale company)
• AC’s most comprehensive pro/con database.
• Covers both sides of numerous topics.
• Includes overviews that describe how the issue evolved.
• Contains essays from magazines, journals, and books.
• Contains statistics and links to high-quality Web sites.

15. Search steps for most library databases (Advanced Search)
Step 1. Translate
natural language
search terms into
database search
language. Enter
your terms into
the search boxes.Step 2. Select the
information field to be
searched for each term.
Step 3. Apply
limiters.
Step 4. Article
output:
Print
e-mail
download/save

16. Step 1. Search Terms in OVRC
Natural Language Database Language
Section 2

17. Example of database language search
Use quotation marks to find
the words of a phrase sitting
side by side in articles.
1,183
articles
1,069
articles

18. What’s going on here?
Looks for:
Manage
Manages
Looks for:
Manage
Manages
Managed
*
Manager
Managers
Management
Etc.
730 articles 4,919 articles

19. What’s going on here?
Looks for:
Stereotype
Stereotypes
Looks for:
Stereotype
Stereotypes
Stereotyping
Stereotypical
*
Truncation
625 articles 698 articles

20. cats AND dogs
AND and OR are commands in most databases.
cats OR dogs
AND = Articles must have all
terms.
OR = Articles must have at least
one term.
Articles about
cats
Articles about
cats
Articles about
dogs
Articles about
dogs
Articles about cats and
dogs
Articles about cats or
dogs

21. Use AND as a command.
employ* AND subordinate AND privacy
“animal rights” AND horse
“foreign policy” AND russia
Articles must have
ALL of the terms
joined with AND.
Memory tip:
AND goes with ALL
Save time by restricting your search to
articles that have all your main topics.

22. Use OR as a command.
“jail time” OR sentenc* OR punish*
“family violence” OR “domestic violence”
Articles must have
at least ONE
of the terms joined with OR.
Memory tip:
OR goes with at
least ONE.
OR is especially good to use with
synonyms and alternatives.
boss* OR supervisor* OR manage*
e-mail OR email

23. What’s going on here?
Long search strings
Hard to find a word match in articles.
Search broken down into concepts
Easier to find a word match in articles.
308 articles2 articles

24. Search terms translated into database language

25. Step 2: Information Fields in OVRC
Section 3

26. Known-item search
fields are not suitable
for this assignment.
Entire document
Known-item search fields vs. unknown-item search fields
Change “Document
Title” and “Publication
Title” to “Keyword.”
newsweek
“privacy in the work place”

27. What is searched when you select “Keyword”?
The body (text) of the articles
Introductory
text
Related
terms Article titles

28. “Entire Document”
searches everything!
What is searched when you select “Entire Document”?
The body (text) of the articles
Entire Document

29. Step 3. Limiters in OVRC
Section 4

30. OVRC limiters
Only use the limiters
you really need.
Limit to peer-
reviewed
publications when
required by the
assignment.
Limit the date range
searched when required
by the assignment,
which is fairly common.

31. Step 4.
Article Output
in OVRC
Section 5

32. List of retrieved articles (“Results”)
These two tabs are
the best ones for
pro/con assignments.

33. The sorting feature controls the order in which articles are shown.
Relevance
Publication date
Relevance: The articles are NOT sorted
by how relevant they are to your search
terms automatically. If this option is not
offered, you’ll have to judge relevance
on your own.
Publication date: When you sort results
by publication date, OVRC usually
displays the oldest articles first! You
can look at the last articles in the list,
and they will be the newest.

34. Printing
in OVRC
Section 6

35. Document options
“Full-text with
Graphics” articles like
this one are the most
common article format
in OVRC. They are
controlled with this
toolbar.

36. “Full-Text with Graphics” article print dialogue box
Right-click anywhere on the
article to pop up a menu like
this with a “print” and “print
preview” option. Do “print
preview” first.

37. List of articles
retrieved by search
Article views: “Full-text with Graphics” and PDF

38. Adobe Acrobat viewer displaying PDF article
The “hiding toolbar” contains
the printing and saving icons.
You must e-mail articles from
the “Full Text with Graphics”
view using the icons at the top
left of the page.
• Scanned in from print original.
• Real page numbers.
• Original photographs, charts,
drawings, etc.

39. Other AC Library databases that are good for pro/con assignments
Points of View Reference Center
(An EBSCO database)
• Search works like Google search.
• Lengthy, comprehensive reports.
• Statistics, charts, graphs
• Same basic features as OVRC with
different terminology and appearance.
• “Overview” and “Point” articles.
• Statistics, charts, graphs

40. Very important!!!
• Do not close your article without writing down some information that will
help you find it again if something goes wrong.
• At a minimum, write down the name of the database you are in, all or a
significant part of the title, and the author’s last name. (You will need the
name of the database for the citation anyway.)
• Using “Print Preview” first can prevent some problems, especially with
PDF documents.