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Government, Politics and Public Administration

PAD140 (F2024)

Finding and Evaluating Scholarly Sources

Hello!

To get started today, open the Seneca Libraries website

Once at the Libraries website:

  1. Click Subject Guides
  2. Click Government, Politics and Public Administration
  3. Click Course Guides
  4. Click PAD140 (F2024)

At any time during the class, feel free to "raise a hand", call out my name, or add a question to the chat.

In today's class:

  1. Agenda / Objectives
  2. Services & Tools @ Seneca Libraries
  3. Scholarly Sources
  4. Finding Sources
  5. Evaluating Sources
  6. Citing Sources

By the end of this session, you should be able to: 

Objectives

    1. Find the Government, Politics and Public Administration subject guide.
    2. Find the PAD140 course guide.
    3. Find useful services and tools at Seneca Libraries.
    4. Conduct a basic search using the library search
    5. Identify criteria to evaluate information sources
    6. Cite a source in APA style

Find @ Seneca Libraries

  1. Getting library & research assistance
    • Live chat / Research appointment / Reach out to me directly
  2. Subject Guides
  3. Seneca Sandbox
  4. Learning Centres
  5. LinkedIn Learning
  6. Citation and Academic Integrity Tools
  7. Assignment Planner

Choosing your topic and research question

  1. Do some background research to find out more about the topic and learn how others have discussed that topic.
  2. Develop more focused questions to explore your idea more deeply
  3. Further define your topic - avoid being too broad (or you will never be able to cover it all) or too narrow (you may not find enough information)

Some ways to narrow a topic:

  • Place (geography, location, setting, etc.)

  • Population (Age, demographic, etc.)

  • Timeframe (year, decade, etc.)

  • Relevant issue or challenge (eg. difficulty finding work, learning disability, etc.)

Encyclopedias

Strengths: short, contains background information on a topic, normally a great starting point when you are just learning about a topic.
Weaknesses: too short, print encyclopedias are out of date quickly, Wikipedia has reliability issues

Books and Book Chapters

Strengths: Provides an in-depth investigation into a topic
Weaknesses: too long, sometimes hard to tell whether it is scholarly

Scholarly Journal Articles

Strengths: Often based on research findings or extensive review, written by experts, reviewed by experts, provides evidence.
Weaknesses: Sometimes written using discipline-specific language or terminology, hard to understand,

Media Sources (news, online magazine articles)

Strengths: Good for current information.
Weaknesses: Sometimes biased, sometimes written to entertain, often not written by experts, often not reviewed by experts

Websites & Social Media

Strengths: Highly accessible, includes government information, "grey literature, etc.
Weaknesses: It is hard to assess credibility and reliability...anyone can post online or create a website.

Lectures, Ted Talks, Interviews, Recordings, Testimony

Strengths: Primary, first-hand accounts.
Weaknesses: It is hard to assess credibility and reliability...single perspective relying on the accuracy of memory.

Search Tools

Search Strategies

Less is More

Start with one or two words and then add one additional term at a time
  • student
  • university student

Phrase Search

Use "quotation marks" around key ideas made up of multiple words
  • "international students"
  • very useful when you have a specific phrase containing common words

Refine

Use features in the search tool, often called limiters or filters, to narrow search results by predefined categories or criteria. Common examples include;
  • Date
  • Content / Material type
  • Peer-reviewed

Sample Search Topic

  • "international student" cap Ontario

Things to remember when using the Seneca Libraries search tool

  1. Sign in to save searches, items, and to request materials.
  2. Use the filters on the left. Common filters are Availability, Content / Material Type, Date.
  3. When viewing an item record, scroll down to the View Online to access the item.
  4. Some items won't be available. You can request unavailable items using interlibrary loan.

Additional Search Features

  1. Description / Subject Headings
  2. Access Options (physical location, online access)
  3. Tools (Cite-It, Permalink)
  4. Separate search for newspaper articles

TASK:  Enter the following search into the Library Search:    homelessness Toronto

  1. How many search results did you get?
  2. Thinking back to the options to narrow a topic in Developing a Topic, provide an additional search term
  3. Limit your search to Peer Reviewed. Find the full-text of one of those articles.

Quality refers to how trustworthy and reputable your source is.  The quality of your sources can be a reflection on the work that you do.

Purpose

Consider the purpose of the source. Why did the authors write/create it and how do you know that?

Audience

Consider the audience of the source. Who did the authors write/create it for and how do you know that?

Authority

Consider who wrote/created the source. Are the creator(s) experts on the topic and how do you know? Consider who is responsible for the content as owner and creator can be different. Is it a company? A government? A university? An individual? and how do you know?

Currency

Consider when the source was published or written. How recently was it written and how do you know that?

Reliability

Consider the information from the source. Does your source provide details about where they got their information - such as references?

Relevance

What does it have to do with your topic or question? Can you clearly explain its importance?

TASK:  Find the following article at Seneca Libraries, find the full-text of the article, and then open the article.

"I want purpose in my life": A qualitative exploration of how homeless youth envision their futures

Without reading the full article, what assumptions can we make about the quality of this source, using the criteria we just introduced?

  1. What is the purpose of this source?
  2. Who is the audience for this source?
  3. Who or what is the authority?
  4. How current is this source?
  5. How reliable is this source?
  6. Relevance is hard to determine as we don't have a specific topic or question. :-)

TASK: Using the article from the Evaluation Activity and using APA citation style:

  1. Provide an in-text citation 
  2. Provide an appropriate APA reference
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