Unlocking the Library

Successful scientists and engineers do research on their projects. The wealth of human knowledge perpetuates more knowledge creation. Look at what others have done to: 

1. Find out what's already been accomplished
2. Get new ideas
3. Learn things that will make your own project stronger

STEM information varies from basic to highly advanced reading. Nobody's an expert at everything--Try these strategies:

• Look for resources that match your understanding level. Many government sites have reliable accurate information aimed at the general public or non-experts. 
• Use a dictionary or an open web browser to look up unfamiliar words.
• For journal articles aimed at experts, get an idea of the article's content first:
  • Read the abstract--It's a short summary
  • Look at the illustrations and their captions
  • Read the conclusions at the end of the article
• Ask for help from your teacher, a librarian, or ASK A LIBRARIAN to find information that's right for you.

Image--Idea, Identify and Evaluate Research Ideas, Shengdong (Shen) Zhao (Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 3.0).

NOTE -- It's a good idea to search a variety of different sources if your first try doesn't work out.

Scientists and engineers rely on authoritative sources of information they can trust. Be a good information consumer -- evaluate your sources. Look for sources that:

• List authors and their credentials or affiliations -- So you know who's providing the information
• Are published by reputable organizations, for example -- 
  • Federal and state scientific agencies
  • Professional STEM societies and organizations
  • Universities with STEM research programs
  • Well-known commercial publishers in science, research and technology
• Usually include citations to other publications, statistics, data
• Are often "peer-reviewed" -- reviewed by other experts in that field

A trustworthy sources doesn't have to meet all of these criteria, but it should meet at least some of them.

Evaluating Information -- More on how to identify authoritative and trustworthy sources.

Image -- Researches looking at data, Colorado School of Mines

Trustworthy Or Not?

You should focus on using authoritative sources, but you can use both authoritative and popular sources for your project. Take extra care evaluating (and think twice about using) sources that:

• Try to sell you something, have a lot of advertisements
• Focus mostly on entertaining you
• Use emotional language, try to persuade you
• Appear biased towards a viewpoint
• Have no date -- How old is this information?

What About... 

AI? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used to identify publications and other information for scholars and researchers. Check with your advisor and the Colorado Science and Engineering Fair's Student Researcher Information on the use of AI for your science project. Remember: You as a scientist or engineer are responsible for verifying citations and other information retrieved using AI.

Wikipedia?  Wikipedia is a good starting point -- but remember, it shouldn't be the only source of your research. Wikipedia has a wide range of contributors that write articles, from authoritative and scholarly to weird or unreliable. Use the criteria above to evaluate a Wikipedia article -- focus particularly on, "Does the article cite its sources?" "Do those cited sources look authoritative and trustworthy?"

YouTube?  YouTube excels in demonstrations, "how to", and experiments. Again, use the criteria above to evaluate a YouTube clip.

"Citing your sources" means providing a record of the sources -- journal articles, books, webpages, etc. -- you used on your project to your audience.

Top 3 Reasons to Cite Your Sources: 

#1 Citing your sources makes you look GOOD! People can tell you've done your research. The sources you cite "back you up" by supporting your own ideas and experiments.

#2 Give credit to those whose work supports yours.

#3 Your readers can follow the works you've cited and use them as a road map to build on what you've done -- they don't have to start from Ground Zero. That's SCIENCE!

A word about PLAGIARISM -- Using others' works or ideas without giving them credit is bad. Don't do it. With all of the good reasons to cite your sources, why plagiarize?

Image -- Research, Nick Youngson, Pix4free.org, Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 3.0

When to Cite

Citing Sources -- More information on citing your sources, including examples of when to cite others' works. You can also ask your teacher, your local librarian, or ASK A LIBRARIAN.

Still not sure when to cite a source? When in doubt, cite it.

How to Cite

A good citation includes enough data to allow others to identify the item cited. This allows your readers to track down the cited publication for their own uses. Every discipline has its own citation style, but these styles all have elements in common. Remember, the goal is to provide enough information for others to easily find your specific source:

• Author or authors (last name, first name)
• Date -- Year of publication, or date you accessed a website
• Title of work -- article, book chapter, encyclopedia entry
• Source -- Journal, book title, publisher or agency
• Specific identifiers -- Volume number, page numbers, web address

Examples:

Journal article -- Shergold, Ian; Lyons, Glenn; Hubers, Christa. 2015. Future mobility in an aging society - Where are we heading? Journal of Transport & Health, vol. 2 (1) p. 86-94.

Book chapter -- Tyson, Neil deGrasse. 2017. Between the galaxies. Astrophysics for people in a hurry, Chapter 4. W. W. Norton & Company, p. 62-74. 

Website -- Garner, Rob, editor. 2022. NASA's Webb sheds light on galaxy evolution, black holes. NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-sheds-light-on-galaxy-evolution-black-holes. Accessed Aug 27 2022.

Website -- Uranium mining in Colorado. Last edited 2022. Wikipedia,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_Colorado. Accessed Jul 18 2022.

When working toward adding to the scholarly discourse, it is important to be a good steward of resources. If research has already been done, conducting the same research may not add to the conversation. Creating new information can also involve reassessing data or bringing together information from different sources. This is why searching the literature is such a critical part of research, it helps ensure you are using the work that has already been done.

Additionally, research can require tools and instrumentation. The costs for these can add up quickly, It is important to assess what tools are available to you. Can you borrow the tools you need? Can you access them through another researcher who is already working in that space?

Mines has many tools for our researchers and even the library has a variety of tools that might help you in your research.