Norma Marion Alloway Library

UNIV 110 Online Course - Scholarly Inquiry and Research Methods

Helpful Links

There are more links below than will actually be used as assigned reading or viewing for each lesson.  You may, however, find them quite helpful in pursuing the course and doing research.

In support of your TWU Studies:

A 15 Minute Crash Course in Notetaking (@TWULearn Support for Students)

Class One

Things We (Might) Believe About University Research (Prezi Presentation) Put in full screen and use the arrow keys at the bottom to navigate.  

No One Knows for Sure What Information Is Anymore (Prezi Presentation)

What is Scholarship? (Prezi Presentation) 

Information in the Academy (Prezi Presentation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv-e9ZvsbOA (McMaster University video on popular vs. scholarly)

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/peerreview/ - Quick guide to peer review

Google and Wikipedia for Research: What's the problem?

https://libguides.twu.ca/?b=s - Link to TWU's Research Guides, with information on locating reference sources (dictionaries, encyclopedias) on various topics; use the Encyclopedias tab in each guide.

Class Two

Research Model Presentation (Google Slides)

Finding a Research Problem

Research Questions - The Good and the not so Good (Prezi Presentation)

Creating Preliminary Outlines from Research Questions

O'Callaghan, S. (2014). Cyberspace and the Sacralization of Information.Online-Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet, 6. Retrieved from: https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/religions/article/view/17361/11172.

Example of a scholarly discussion carried out through a blog

How Does the Internet Work? - Brilliantly clear 20 minute YouTube video explaining the structure and functions of the Internet.

Eli Pariser: Beware Online Filter Bubbles

Video: “How Does Google Know Everything about Me?” from the Scientific American

Video: "What Google Search Is Like in 2022" Great takedown on Google's primary intention to make money from you (which, ironically, turns into an ad for earbuds. Go figure).

Search engines that don't track you:

DuckDuckGo (based on the Google search engine but not affiliated with Google)

OneSearch - A search engine released by Verizon in January 2020.  It is based on the Bing search engine and offers, “No cookies, no personal profiling, pure - unfiltered results, and keyword encryption.” Thus it does not track you, nor does it remember or share your search history (this is not the same as TWU's Library OneSearch.

Want to play a game about how easy it is to create fake news?  Try this: https://www.getbadnews.com/

William Badke "Post-Truth, False News, and Information Literacy," - http://www.infotoday.com/OnlineSearcher/Articles/InfoLit-Land/PostTruth-False-News-and-Information-Literacy-119319.shtml 

Want to know more about the cost of academic literature and the rise of open access? Watch Paywall the Movie (just over an hour)

Academic Search Complete - Try a search on Servant Leadership

Class Three

http://williambadke.com/Boolean.htm - Basics of Boolean searching

 
On the risks of keyword searching - Amusing YouTube video
 
http://williambadke.com/Metadata.htm - Metadata, an explanation-
 
https://www.twu.ca/library/ - Library home page
 
http://libguides.twu.ca/LibraryOneSearch - Guide to using TWU library's OneSearch, including creating formatted citations.
 
 
http://williambadke.com/DecipheringCitations.htm - Deciphering citations: A Guide
 
Guides to using WorldCat to format book citations:

 

 

http://libguides.twu.ca/EndNote/ - Introductory guide to EndNote
 
NOTE: If you are not using EndNote and want to create citations for books, use Citation Machine - http://www.citationmachine.net/.  
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tm-sDKCnO4&feature=youtu.be - Video on using Boolean Operators (a bit tedious, but very clear and helpful)
 

Midpoint

See links in the Midpoint class session (index on the left side).

Class Four

Video: What are databases and why do you need them?

Guide to TWU's Library OneSearch: http://libguides.twu.ca/LibraryOneSearch

Tutorials for specific article databases: http://libguides.twu.ca/library_research/articles

The Dimensions Database: https://app.dimensions.ai

Citation Tools:

  • Google Scholar (Click on the quotation mark sign below any citation; note that this is a login link to GS from the library home page)
  • Citation Machine: http://www.citationmachine.net/ (Choose "Popular styles" at the top, and the style you want from the drop-down.  Find the type of resource you are citing (e.g. book or journal) and copy/paste the title into the box.  Follow the steps until you create a citation.  Check it for accuracy and correct form). 

Statistics and Government Documents (not covered in class):

Class Five

Source Evaluation:

 
Evaluate these:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160611123955/http://www.nyu.edu/classes/jackson/social.issues/papers/AbortGrI.html - Scholarly work or not?  Another site (now removed) contains the professor's comment on this undergraduate group paper, giving it a C+ and calling it "weak."
 
http://www.doarj.org/ijhrss/archives/ - Is this a predatory journal?
 
Prepublication articles (e.g. https://www.biorxiv.org/​) - special sites that put up articles not yet published in a journal.  How does this affect credibility and authority?
 
Retraction Watch - ""Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process" [retractions are scholarly articles that have been removed by their publishers due to faulty or fraudulent research.] Their database is at http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx?. If you want to see a pretty full list of retracted articles, just click on the Green search button without entering anything in the form.
 
 Example of a journal retraction notice (includes a link to the retraced article itself).
 
 
http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html - This site challenges the reality of moon landings.  What are the signs of bias, illogical thinking, and lack of scholarly authority? Do the old-fashioned graphics and style demand that you discount it?
 
Julia Galef TED talk on confirmation bias:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4RLfVxTGH4
 
Hoaxes
 
- https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/archive/scigen/rooter.pdf ("Research paper" generated by a computer program based on stock phrases)
 
Note Organization and Outlines:
 

Doing a literature review - See Textbook, Appendix A.3.4 

http://williambadke.com/WritingABookReview.pdf - Writing a book review 

http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/?CMP= - The Academic Phrasebank, for excellent and very user-friendly advice on the best way to use sources and write academic papers.

http://libguides.dbu.edu/planner - A research paper planner/timeline to schedule the steps of a research paper (using Badke, Research Strategies, as its basis) so that you finish on time (Dallas Baptist University).

Copyright and Plagiarism:

 
 
 
 
Want to see what the first WWW browser looked like?  There is a reproduction of it: https://worldwideweb.cern.ch/browser/