Research Log Entry 1
1. What three periodicals did you choose?
I chose Newsweek, American Bar Association Journal, and The Journal of Comparative Psychology for my three periodicals.
2. Name three articles, one from each of the three journals you chose.
The three articles I chose were “The Abortion Wars Get Technical” from Newsweek, “Role of nasal chemical senses in garter snakes response to airborne odor cues from prey” from The Journal of Comparative Psychology, and “Gun Control vs. Gun Prohibition” from the American Bar Association Journal.
3. What are the major differences among these articles?
The difference between these articles was the way they were written. Some were more written based on fact rather than opinion. One was an actual scientific study whereas the other two were generally argumentative essays.
4. What are the major differences among these periodicals?
The major differences among these periodicals were their formatting. There were different types of pictures in them and some were less formally written than others. It seemed like The American Bar Association Journal was more for adults and harder to understand. The Journal of Comparative Psychology is something I would only read if I was taking a class that required it.Research Log Entry 2
1. Which database did you choose for your first search? Directory of Open Access Journals
2. What terms did you enter to conduct your search? Pharmacy
3. How many results did you retrieve? 19
4. If there were more than about 100 results, how did you refine your search terms to narrow your results? n/a
5. Once you got your results to around 100 (or fewer), how did you determine they were meaningful? n/a I only got 19 results.
6. Which article did you choose? Give the bibliographic information for that article (I must be able to access this article).
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education Volume 72, Issue 6, Article 126
Authors: David W. Fielding, Gayle A. Brazeau, Kishor M. Wasan
Publisher: American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy
Published: 2004
7. How did you determine this article was meaningful?
These writers seemed like they had plenty of scientific research for their explanations. They all had degrees from Universities so they were well educated and it is a well-informed article.
Academic Search Premier
1. What terms did you enter to conduct your search? Health Sciences
2. How many results did you retrieve? 363
3. If there were more than about 100 results, how did you refine your search terms to narrow your results? I did not because I found one that I liked on the first page.
4. What differences did you note in how you needed to manipulate your search terms in this different database? This data base had a lot more results than the last one so I had to be more careful with what I typed in for my keywords.
5. Once you got your results to around 100 (or fewer), how did you determine they were meaningful? I looked to see what part of the title the keyword got put into.
6. Which article did you choose? Give the bibliographic information for that article (I must be able to access this article).
I chose Medical Statistics: A Textbook for the Health Sciences (4th Ed.)
Author: Davis, J. Wade
Published: 2008
7. How did you determine this article was meaningful?
The book is based a lot on statistics so there is a lot of useful information in it. The author also went is a graduate and has written other books of this type with great information on the source.
In your periodicals piece, you write: "The Journal of Comparative Psychology is something I would only read if I was taking a class that required it." You'll find you read a good number of these as you go through your college career. These are scholarly and peer-reviewed and faculty often require students to use only peer-reviewed materials for assignments.
ReplyDeleteDOAJ: It would be interesting to enter the same seach term in HighWire. I expect you would get many more results as that's oriented to a science/medical group of journals. DOAJ is broader in scope.
Academic Search Premier:
For this question: "If there were more than about 100 results, how did you refine your search terms to narrow your results?" you write: "I did not because I found one that I liked on the first page." I specifically wanted you to do some search term manipulation, which is one reason I wanted you to limit your search. Also, if you were doing a research paper, you would need to examine your full set of results, not just land on the first item that was relevant.
In this case, you got more results than in the first database you used, so you need to do more refining. Sometimes, depending on the topic, you will find it's the opposite. Academic Search Premier may have fewer results than another database. It all depends on the topic.
In terms of your evaluation, you chose good criteria--author credentials and relevant information.