Our information-saturated environment causes us to spend too much time searching, surfing and organizing the information in our lives. But finding reliable high quality information can be a problem. We are often so buried in information-- and strapped for time-- that we grab the search results without bothering to evaluate its quality. Stebbins shows you how to cut out unreliable information and find online information you can rely on.
We live in an information-saturated environment and spend far too much time searching, surfing, skimming, contributing, and organizing the information in our lives. We spend too little time immersing ourselves in reliable high quality information. We are often so buried in information and strapped for time that we grab information like it was fast food, without bothering to evaluate its quality. Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth uses stories or “information adventures” to illustrate the best approaches to searching for information and to help us develop our aptitude for locating high quality resources in a rapidly changing digital environment that is becoming proficient at monopolizing our attention with useless or unreliable information. This book is about taking charge of the search process and not handing over the reins to search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo to dictate what information we consume. Each chapter focuses on a quest for different types of information while digging deeper into the complexities of finding credible places to look for information and ways to think about evaluating it. As the Internet evolves and becomes more sophisticated, our strategies for finding and evaluating information need to evolve as well. The stories in this book range from investigating challenging research questions to exploring health issues and everyday life questions like finding a reliable restaurant or product review. These chapters go beyond the simple and more mechanical checklist approach to evaluating information, though these factors are also discussed.
How to be a great online searcher, demonstrated with step-by-step searches for answers to a series of intriguing questions (for example, “Is that plant poisonous?”). We all know how to look up something online by typing words into a search engine. We do this so often that we have made the most famous search engine a verb: we Google it—“Japan population” or “Nobel Peace Prize” or “poison ivy” or whatever we want to know. But knowing how to Google something doesn't make us search experts; there's much more we can do to access the massive collective knowledge available online. In The Joy of Search, Daniel Russell shows us how to be great online researchers. We don't have to be computer geeks or a scholar searching out obscure facts; we just need to know some basic methods. Russell demonstrates these methods with step-by-step searches for answers to a series of intriguing questions—from “what is the wrong side of a towel?” to “what is the most likely way you will die?” Along the way, readers will discover essential tools for effective online searches—and learn some fascinating facts and interesting stories. Russell explains how to frame search queries so they will yield information and describes the best ways to use such resources as Google Earth, Google Scholar, Wikipedia, and Wikimedia. He shows when to put search terms in double quotes, how to use the operator (*), why metadata is important, and how to triangulate information from multiple sources. By the end of this engaging journey of discovering, readers will have the definitive answer to why the best online searches involve more than typing a few words into Google.
Reading as a student demands new skills and new disciplines. Students must read. They must read to inform themselves about the subjects they are studying and to allow them to write assignments, reports and dissertations. Though most students can read fairly well, few can make as much or as efficient use as possible of the time they devote to reading for academic purposes. Many guides to study offer a pot pourri of techniques for improving reading skills. None gives as full a treatment of this essential and underpinning area of academic life as Reading at University. The authors believe that students must change both the ways in which they read and the ways in which they think about reading. This book offers effective and efficient strategies for fulfilling students' reading and study potential.
On 8 March 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. The ships, some nearly five hundred feet long, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. Their mission was 'to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas' and unite the world in Confucian harmony. Their journey would last for over two years and take them around the globe but by the time they returned home, China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. And so the great ships were left to rot and the records of their journey were destroyed. And with them, the knowledge that the Chinese had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan, reached America seventy years before Columbus, and Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook... The result of fifteen years research, 1421 is Gavin Menzies' enthralling account of the voyage of the Chinese fleet, the remarkable discoveries he made and the persuasive evidence to support them: ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the later European navigators as well as the traces the fleet left behind - from sunken junks to the votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, giving thanks to Shao Lin, goddess of the sea. Already hailed as a classic, this is the story of an extraordinary journey of discovery that not only radically alters our understanding of world exploration but also rewrites history itself.
Every day researchers face an onslaught of irrelevant, inaccurate, and sometimes insidious information. While new technologies provide powerful tools for accessing knowledge, not all information is created equal. Valuable information may be tucked away on a shelf, buried on the hundredth page of search results, or hidden behind digital barriers. With so many obstacles to effective research, it is vital that higher education students master the art of inquiry. Information Now is an innovative approach to information literacy that will reinvent the way college students think about research. Instead of the typical textbook format, it uses illustrations, humor, and reflective exercises to teach students how to become savvy researchers. Students will learn how to evaluate information, to incorporate it into their existing knowledge base, to wield it effectively, and to understand the ethical issues surrounding its use. Written by two library professionals, it incorporates concepts and skills drawn from the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education and their Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Thoroughly researched and highly engaging, Information Now offers the tools that students need to become powerful consumers and creators of information. Whether used by a high school student tackling a big paper, an undergrad facing the newness of a university library, or a writer wanting to go beyond Google, Information Now is a powerful tool for any researcher’s arsenal.
A New York Times Bestseller "Celebrates a bold era when voyaging beyond the Earth was deemed crucial to national security and pride." -The Wall Street Journal Restoring the drama, majesty, and sheer improbability of an American triumph, this is award-winning historian Craig Nelson's definitive and thrilling story of man's first trip to the moon. At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 rocket launched in the presence of more than a million spectators who had gathered to witness a truly historic event. Through interviews, 23,000 pages of NASA oral histories, and declassified CIA documents on the space race, Rocket Men presents a vivid narrative of the moon mission, taking readers on the journey to one of the last frontiers of the human imagination.
“Essential reading for teachers, education administrators, and policymakers alike.” —STARRED Library Journal The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.
