Saturday, November 29, 2008
In a way, using databases is effective as compared to the rest as the results are quite limited. By that I mean only credible research papers can be found. It is also rather accurate as boolean operators are used to filter out the irrelevant results. Using search engines usually yield many irrelevant sources as they are mainly keyword based while meta-search might not give you the desired information as well. Subject directories? I think they are the worst of the lot as the results are rather inaccurate.
Personally, I've used ebscohost for one of my modules in year 2 and I have to say that it is rather efficient in churning out accurate results. Given the chance, I will still use databases for research.
around the world in 80 days
[11:41 AM]
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
From the comfort of my seat, the various information that strangers have gathered are all in my hands. This beats having to prowl through various books and newspapers in order to look out for more information. Furthermore, search engine facilities have since improved, with special features such as the advanced search to help you narrow down and limit your search in terms of date and relevance, to cite a few examples. Google is my preferred option due to its compatibility with boolean operators and its advanced search option. It is also able to take random snapshots of webpages, which will be then cached so that I can actually see what was published on the website previously. Pages similar to what my search query are also presented, thus giving me the freedom to choose whichever information I want to use.
Opinion on sitefeeds
Though it is useful in conveying updates of websites that I may have a
morbid genuine interest in, I somehow think that it is rather redundant as I would rather click the link and head to the intended target's blog instead. Unless I have a very good reason to use site feeds, I will not use it.
around the world in 80 days
[11:34 AM]
Monday, November 10, 2008
The EIR lesson last week taught us how to use the relevant search terms on Google and its sister site, Google Scholar.
On the whole, I found that Google is pretty good as the information generated from a search query is pretty diversified. That said, there are quite a lot of unnecessary information which were thrown at me during the search. But after comparing to Google Scholar, I think Google wins hands down. Although there are tons of research papers found via Google Scholar, they are mostly pay-to-read kinds.
Creating a discussion thread in a forum is nothing new to me. Although the replies are mostly irrelevant to the topic, some interesting alternative perspective and insights were shared. And besides, it is where I get to save random funny images like this one.
So in a way, the waiting time for replies are always pretty exciting as you never know if you'll get flamed, a good/bad answer or some funny idiot who decides to post for the sake of increasing his post count. Then again, I could always use a good laugh and I actually killed a few threads by being 'un-serious' in the past. I am still like that now, but that's another story.
And the last part regarding why we have to do citations for sources, we are using someone's intellectual property to give credibility to our own work. It makes our work seem authentic and allows interested parties to read up on the source at their own leisure. In addition, I'd say we should do citations to show our appreciation for the information that the person provided.
around the world in 80 days
[8:11 AM]
