The objectives are to investigate a topic and compare results of a search in three different online search tools, and to help you understand the purpose, the differences, the strengths, and the weaknesses of various online research tools.
Let’s take Aristotle and send him into cyberspace.
Open three windows to
compare and contrast the following tools. Do a simple search for “Aristotle,” analyze
your results and answer the following questions.
Google (www.google.com)
- is a tool for finding resources on the web. Google scans web pages to
find instances of the keyword(s) you have entered in the search box.
Google Scholar (www.scholar.google.com) - is a freely-accessible web search engine that searches through the full-text of much (but not all!) scholarly literature across many publishing formats and subjects. Google Scholar does not necessarily provide access to the full text of the article for free, but many of the articles are available through the UCI Libraries.
Philosopher’s
Index (http://uclibs.org/PID/113584) – is
a database that provides access to comprehensive scholarly research in all
areas of philosophy.
The literature covered goes back to 1940 and includes journal articles, books,
and book chapters. This is a subscription based resource, available to students,
staff and faculty at UCI.
**If you use a computer that is not located on campus, you must connect to
the Libraries’ resources through a VPN, see (http://www.lib.uci.edu/services/how/connect.html)
for information on connecting from off campus.
1. What kind of material/resources about Aristotle did you find in each search?
2. How might information from each be used for a research paper? What can the different types of information sources be used for?
3. What are the advantages of each search tool? What are the disadvantages?
Refining Your Search
Combined, your three searches should have yielded well over 11 million results. Obviously we need to refine our searching. Redo each of the searches, adding the word "soul" to the searches.
In the Philosopher’s Index you can further refine your results by limiting where the search terms must appear. Change the search to have the terms appear as descriptors, perhaps better known as subject headings.
4. Look at what has been added and what has been eliminated. How did this change your results from each of the online tools beyond simply reducing the number?
Helpful research tips:
The UC-eLinks 
buttons
on the result list in Philosopher’s Index will
tell you if UCI libraries has access to the article online or if the library
subscribes to the journal.
If you are on campus or
accessing Google Scholar via a VPN, the
will
be available for those results. While Google Scholar searches the full text
of the documents
included, many of the results are not freely available to the public
Philosopher’s Index is just one of many different subject specific online databases available to UCI students. To find out more visit www.lib.uci.edu and click on Find Online Resources.
Using Advanced Google searching will help refine your results, find tips, shortcuts and special functions at http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/refinesearch.html.
Google Scholar offers
advanced searching as well. Find tips to increase your accuracy and efficiency
at http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/refinesearch.html.
To
access the Humanities Core Course Library web page for all the Discovery
Tasks and other important links, go to http://course.lib.uci.edu/hu/writing/humcore/ .
Questions, comments, problems? Contact Cathy Palmer, UCI Libraries (cpalmer@uci.edu)
