Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Research Journal, Part 7: Finding Articles in Periodical Indexes


This is my magazine article. It is from PC World Magazine, which is a major technology publication that has been popular for years. I found it on my first search with Academic Search Premier using the following search, and on the first try (also used date range of 2010-present):



I was not familiar with the author, Steven Andres, and the article did not give specific references so I performed a Google search on his name, which was not much help. I then performed a Google search for "Steven Andres" AND "pc world", bingo. He is actually Steven AndrĂ©s, M.S., from San Diego State University, and comes with too many certifications and credentials to list here, check out his bio,  He has published many, current related articles. This article specifically addresses the type of information I was looking for when performing my search, "How to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi" and an explanation of what the associated risks are.

Works Cited

Andrés, Steven. "How to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi." PC World 28.7 (2010): 94-96. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Nov. 2012.

This is my related newspaper article, by Kate Murphy, published by The New York Times. It took a little more searching to find this one, I used the same Boolean search terms, however used Proquest for search. This included sub-categorizing types of information and 2010-present. I was also looking for a research article at the same time. It also gave me some good additional possible subject terms.



This article is relevant because the topics discussed are specifically from the categories I was searching for. I could not find any other information on the author and she did not relate any sources. However, based on my personal knowledge I would say she has some advanced knowledge on the subject and she has a reputable publisher. This was also a recent article (2011). Additionally there was no apparent bias to the information presented.

Works Cited

Murphy, Kate. "New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi Users." New York Times: B.8. Feb 17 2011. Los Angeles Times; National Newspapers Core; New York Times. Web. 7 Nov. 2012 .

This is my related Scholarly Journal Article. Again, I stuck with what worked for my search. This article also showed up quickly. It was located in in the Academic Search Premier. It also presented some great additional, related search terms I had not previously considered.



This article is relevant because like the others, it is specific to what I was searching for. It is has two authors, one of whom is the is "Network, Information and Computer Security Lab (NICS) Head, Javier Lopez, Full Professor (CatedrĂ¡tico) Computer Science Department, University of Malaga (Spain). The other is one of his PHD students, Ruben Rios. If you follow either of their links you will see they have quite impressive credentials (the website is .es  because the country of origin is Spain, but is in English. The article was published less than a year ago.

Works Cited

Rios, R., and J.Lopez. "Analysis of Location Privacy Solutions in Wireless Sensor Networks." IET Communications 5.17 (2011): 2518-2532. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Nov. 2012.


This was a great exercise. In my two previous English classes and two previous Psychology classes I was required to perform research, and had tools at my disposal, however was never really "shown" effective researching tools. Even though I did stumble upon some things that helped, this has been a very effective series of exercises thus far. Boolean terms are fantastic and very simple to use. They are also real-world tools (for the virtual world) as they create effective search strategies for any research endeavor on the web, academic or otherwise like: Vancouver NOT bc OR Canada AND Pizza AND special* AND pepperoni AND delivery. Recognizing the additional search terms that may be provided by one good result is also very helpful.

I feel all of my examples meet all five of the A.S.P.E.C.T. requirements from the IRIS module.



"A: Authority

S: Sources

P: Purpose

E: Evenness

C: Coverage

T: Timeliness".

1 comment:

  1. Hi, Shane:

    Excellent work, thanks for the visuals. I can see how you created your search statement and used the tools to filter your results. I'm glad you found this more in depth introduction to the databases helpful and will be able to use these tools in the future. You identified several important ASPECT criteria for each article to evaluate for your research. It's always a good idea to be an critical consumer and look for clues to credibility and reliability.

    Cheers,
    Andrea

    ReplyDelete