What I know about advanced searching
Advanced searching is time consuming, iterative process, that is often unfruitful.
Advanced searching uses boolean equations to make a search more specific and to narrow or expand a search.
Search engines use the different conventions conventions (use of quotation marks and operators) and different search fields (title, author, abstract, full text, years of publication, publication type, source title, etc).
The results of academic database searches often contain items that have been subjected to peer review, results of university-based research, or the contents of respected professional or academic publications.
The results of academic database searches are often older.
Search engines of academic databases are pedantic and not intuitive. For example, you need to use exact terms, spelling mistakes often don’t yield results or the results you need.
From the first six titles, I selected Knight's (2010), Enlivening the curriculum: The power of philosophical inquiry, as being the most relevant item for my inquiry.
When I looked at the reference list for Knight's article I noticed that one item contained a hyperlink:
“Institute for the Advancement of philosophy for Children, Montclair , New Jersey; R Research report. Available from Internet: http://cehs.montclair.edu/academic/iapc/research.shtml”
The hyperlink led to a website that had a list of further research articles.
Advanced searching is time consuming, iterative process, that is often unfruitful.
Advanced searching uses boolean equations to make a search more specific and to narrow or expand a search.
Search engines use the different conventions conventions (use of quotation marks and operators) and different search fields (title, author, abstract, full text, years of publication, publication type, source title, etc).
The results of academic database searches often contain items that have been subjected to peer review, results of university-based research, or the contents of respected professional or academic publications.
The results of academic database searches are often older.
Search engines of academic databases are pedantic and not intuitive. For example, you need to use exact terms, spelling mistakes often don’t yield results or the results you need.
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| Although, databases with smart text capability will make suggestions as illustrated above. |
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| QUT’s quick search facility will also suggest specialised collections for you topic. |
The contents of Google and Google Scholar searches often contain items that have not undergone an academic review process, serve the interests of an individual, group or sponsoring organisation. There are even blogs and websites devoted to raising awareness about reports that make unsubstatiated claims.
In his blog. Computing: the Science of Nearly Everything. (http://drtomcrick.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/sense-about-science-report-dodgy-science/) Dr Tom Crick (BSc (Hons) PhD FHEA MBCS Senior Lecturer in Computer Science Department, Information Systems and International Studies) talks about the “Sense About Science” website (http://www.senseaboutscience.org/), the aim of which is to equip people to make sense of science and evidence.
The results of Google and Google Scholar searches are sometimes recently released documents or emerging ideas that have yet to gain mainstream acceptance. In the field of education, Connectivism (http://www.connectivism.ca/about.html) proposes “a learning theory for today’s learner”. The role of MOOCs as a conduit for online enactment of connectivist learning theory is described at http://www.connectivism.ca/.
The results of Google and Google Scholar searches contain items of different media, such as audio files, videos and slideshows.
Only a fraction of the results of Google and Google Scholar searches are freely available on the Internet. Many items are linked to databases where you have to pay to download the item.
Features like smart text and full text searching and fuzzy logic, make using Google and Google Scholar seem more intuitive than searching academic databases. These searches cast a broad net. However, many of the results are not suitable for my purposes. Advanced searches in Google and Google Scholar can be used to filter out some types of unsuitable material.
Google Scholar is useful for identifying a range of related search terms or search limiting terms, and finding sources that can then be accessed through the relevant academic database.
The reference lists of documents found using Google can also be used as a starting point for further research.
Example
An Advanced Google Scholar search: children + "philosophy curriculum" -"philosophy, education" (2000-2011) returned about 481 results.
In his blog. Computing: the Science of Nearly Everything. (http://drtomcrick.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/sense-about-science-report-dodgy-science/) Dr Tom Crick (BSc (Hons) PhD FHEA MBCS Senior Lecturer in Computer Science Department, Information Systems and International Studies) talks about the “Sense About Science” website (http://www.senseaboutscience.org/), the aim of which is to equip people to make sense of science and evidence.
The results of Google and Google Scholar searches are sometimes recently released documents or emerging ideas that have yet to gain mainstream acceptance. In the field of education, Connectivism (http://www.connectivism.ca/about.html) proposes “a learning theory for today’s learner”. The role of MOOCs as a conduit for online enactment of connectivist learning theory is described at http://www.connectivism.ca/.
The results of Google and Google Scholar searches contain items of different media, such as audio files, videos and slideshows.
Features like smart text and full text searching and fuzzy logic, make using Google and Google Scholar seem more intuitive than searching academic databases. These searches cast a broad net. However, many of the results are not suitable for my purposes. Advanced searches in Google and Google Scholar can be used to filter out some types of unsuitable material.
Google Scholar is useful for identifying a range of related search terms or search limiting terms, and finding sources that can then be accessed through the relevant academic database.
The reference lists of documents found using Google can also be used as a starting point for further research.
Example
An Advanced Google Scholar search: children + "philosophy curriculum" -"philosophy, education" (2000-2011) returned about 481 results.
From the first six titles, I selected Knight's (2010), Enlivening the curriculum: The power of philosophical inquiry, as being the most relevant item for my inquiry.
When I looked at the reference list for Knight's article I noticed that one item contained a hyperlink:
“Institute for the Advancement of philosophy for Children, Montclair , New Jersey; R Research report. Available from Internet: http://cehs.montclair.edu/academic/iapc/research.shtml”
The hyperlink led to a website that had a list of further research articles.
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