Techniques for Searching

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Techniques for Searching

• The Fourth Pillar
• Carol Green

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Searching Tips

• Select topic
• Put in form of a question
• Identify keywords (and synonyms) from search
  question
• Link with connectors (and/or)
• Remember plurals and various spellings

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Keywords

• Keywords derived from
• Words in titles
• Words in abstracts
• Individual words in descriptors (indexing terms)

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Controlled Vocabulary

• CAB Thesaurus
• AGRIVOC
• NAL

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Sample reference (TreeCD)

• Forest Science Database 2000-2005/06.TI
  Forecasting volume and economic gains from
  intensive plantation management using different
  response curves.
• AU South,-D-B VanderSchaaf,-C-L Teeter,-L-D
• SO Southern-African-Forestry-Journal. 2005
  (203) 41-47PB Menlo Park, South Africa
  Southern African Institute of Forestry,
  Suider-Afrikaanse Instituut van Boswese.
• LA English
• AB Proponents of intensive plantation management
  do not all use the same type of response curves
  when predicting future volume gains. As a result,
  some believe that continuously increasing the
  intensity of management will increase landowner
  profits and reduce the unit cost of wood
  production (i.e. all silvicultural costs per
  ha/merchantable cubic metres per ha at harvest).
  A few believe there is no upper limit to stand
  productivity while others use response curves
  that follow the law of diminishing returns. Using
  loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) data from Georgia as
  a point of reference, we developed four
  hypothetical production models (where yield is a
  function of silvicultural effort). The models
  that produced apparently unrealistic results were
  (1) an exponential curve and (2) a linear curve
  where the costs of growing a cubic metre of
  merchantable wood (at time of harvest) was
  inversely related to the discounted cost of
  intensive silviculture. Although increasing
  silvicultural effort will often result in more
  merchantable volume at harvest, the extra wood
  volume might not be enough to prevent a reduction
  in net present value of the stand. Harvesting
  intensively managed loblolly pine stands at age
  15 years might not prove economical for a
  private, non-industrial landowner in the USA if
  the costs of establishment are too high or if no
  local mills will purchase logs that contain a
  high percentage of juvenile wood..
• DE forest-economics forest-management
  forest-plantations forests- intensive-silvicultu
  re merchantable-volume models- productivity-
  returns- silviculture- volume-determination
  yield-forecasting

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Evaluating Web Resources
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Search Engines

• Search Engine chart
• http//www.searchengineshowdown.com/
• features/
• Bothell search engines guide
• http//www.bothell.washington.edu/library/guides/s
  ubjects/searchengines.html
• guides

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Web Resources Myth or Fact

• All published material is free to everyone.
• Electronic information is better than other forms
  of information.
• Web sources are of equal accuracy, value,
  authority and currency.
• There is no need to distinguish among sources
  found on the Web.

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Evaluating Web Sources

• Currency
• Accuracy
• Authority
• Objectivity

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Currency

• Publication date
• Edition or update
• Primary or secondary source

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Accuracy

• Peer-reviewed
• Credentials of author or agency responsible
• Publication type
• Quality
• Facts verifiable

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Authority

• Authors well documented
• Credentials and qualifications appropriate
• Peer-reviewed
• Primary or secondary resource

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Objectivity

• Purpose of publication
• Audience

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Evaluation Guides

• Johns Hopkins University
• http//www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/
• general/evaluating/index.html

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Web Site Extensions

• .edu educational .org organization .gov
  government .net network/utilities .mil
  military .com commercial