This slide accompanies Noel Kopriva's first visit to Plants and People, PLSC 105, in Fall 2013

1. WELCOME TO EVANSDALE LIBRARY!
Noël Kopriva
Agriculture, Natural Resources, &
Design Librarian
304.293.9747
Noel.Kopriva@mail.wvu.edu

2. The Information Cycle, generally

3. The Science Information Cycle
Researcher has
an idea
Does hormone
replacement therapy
increase the risk for
breast cancer?
Women’s Health
Initiative designs
study
WHI conducts study
on trial group of over
16,000 women
Paper published in Journal
of the American Medical
Association
Results reported on
news, Internet, magazines.
CQ Researcher article
discusses it.
Someone reads it
(and quotes it)
Adapted, with permission, from Linda Blake’s Biology 115 LibGuide, located at http://libguides.wvu.edu/biology115.

4. Information Sources: scholarly vs. popular

5. Nobody wins with this approach
• Students avoid generally reliable
“popular” resources that they might prefer
to use and their citation style is not
appropriate or correct
• Students use scholarly articles they don’t
understand and their citation style is not
appropriate or correct
• Students can miss out on using scholarly
articles they DO understand

6. Are written by academic experts (look
for a university or laboratory affiliation)
Articles in scholarly journals
Have abstracts and reference lists
Have a specialized format (often
consisting of an
introduction, methodology, results, disc
ussion, and conclusions)
Use discipline-specific language
The rose flower phenolic compounds, especially
anthocyanic pigments, have been extensively
studied …

7. Are written by journalists
Articles in Popular Magazines
Don't use
Methods, Discussions, and Results
sections
Use language understandable by the
general public
Have taglines instead of abstracts
It’s something no one alive today
will likely ever see again…

8. BOTH KINDS OF SOURCES ARE RELIABLE WHEN:
• They are appropriate to the assignment or
research project
• They are carefully evaluated and chosen using
guidelines such as CRAAP* or RADCAB*
• The researcher integrates them into their paper
or research project according to professional
standards
• The researcher cites them professionally and
ethically
CRAAP = Currency, Relevance, Accuracy, Authoritative, Purpose
RADCAB =
Relevancy, Appropriateness, Detail, Currency, Authority, Bias

9. GOOD NEWS!
Library resources tend to be reliable for academic work!
And I have already found some of them for you!
They are at http://libguides.wvu.edu/plsc105!

10. START WITH SUMMON

11. REFINE YOUR SEARCH WITH EBSCOHOST
Go to EbscoHost from Summon ….. or your class LibGuide

12. REFINE YOUR SEARCH WITH MOUNTAINLYNX
Go to MountainLynx from Summon ….. or your class LibGuide

13. QUIZ! GET OUT A PIECE OF PAPER
1. You get news from Time magazine during what phase of the
information cycle?
a. The beginning, when an event first happens
b. The middle, about six months after the event
c. The end, about a year after the event
2. Scholarly articles are better than academic books.
a. True, because they are the most detailed
b. False, because all types of information in the cycle are parts of the
information picture
c. False, because books are always better than articles since they’re
longer