Before I begin a new search for information (maybe for an assignment, or to help you choose your next holiday destination), I spend some time thinking about what I already know, what the gaps in my knowledge are, and the best types of information to meet my needs.
When thinking of search words, I break down my topic into broad areas and then identify the most appropriate search words. I also consider any synonyms or alternative subject words that might have been used to describe my topic.
When I come across a new piece of information (e.g. a website, newspaper article) I consider the quality of the information, and based on that I decide whether or not to use it.
Intute: Engineering | A free online service providing access to websites selected and evaluated by subject specialists. |
TechXtra | A companion site to Intute for locating articles, books, the best websites, the latest industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text eprints, the latest research, teaching and learning resources and more, in engineering, mathematics and computing. |
WorldCat | References to over 1 billion items in 10,000 libraries worldwide. |
CORE-Materials | A repository of over 1300 freely available open educational resources (OERs) in materials science and engineering. |
Flickr | A photo sharing website that contains pictures relating to all subjects. Note that in order to reuse a picture from this site you may need to get the permission of the person who uploaded the photo. |
British Library Images Online | Images from two millennia of world history. The collection includes images of people, natural history, religion, conflict, travel and exploration, and social history. There are free samples which can be downloaded for personal use. |
Directory of Open Access Journals | DOAJ provides free access to selected scholarly journals. It can be browsed by title or subject, as well as searched for keywords. |
Wikipedia | A freely available collaborative encyclopedia. |
Encyclopedia Britannica | This site provides simultaneous searching of Encylopaedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, Britannica Book of the Year, and an Internet directory. Together they include more than 300,000 links to Web sites selected, rated, and reviewed by Britannica editors. |
Esp@cenet | The Esp@cenet database is a European initiative to make the information contained in patents widely available to non-professionals at no cost via national patent offices. On Esp@cenet you can search original patent applications from Great Britain, other European countries, the European Patent Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization (PCT). You can also search applications with an English abstract and title from Japan and from a worldwide collection of 30 million documents. You can retrieve 'front page' information (bibliographic details, drawing, and abstract) and also 150 million pages of complete documents. |
Intellectual Property Office | The Intellectual Property Office is responsible for Intellectual Property in the UK. Its web site contains a great deal of useful information on Trade Marks, Copyright, Designs and Patents, including the full text of legislation and case reports. The site also lists links to worldwide websites. |
World Intellectual Property Organization | The WIPO site describes its activities and services in the areas of international designs, global IP issues, IP law, international marks and international classifications. |
EurekAlert! | A global gateway dealing with news and links to information in the fields of Science, Medicine and Technology. |
ABYZ News Links | A portal to online news sources from around the world, providing up-to-date information on all countries as well as background information for each country. |
A study by researchers at an American University reveals that 8 out of 10 people dislike music being played while they are shopping.
Book (paper) | ISBN, Author |
Resource | Identifying information |
Book (paper) | ISBN, Author |
Book (electronic) | |
Journal article (paper) | |
Journal article (electronic) | |
Website | |
Video | |
Podcast |
Resource | Identifying information |
Book (paper) | author, title, date, publisher, where it was published, ISBN |
Book (electronic) | author, title, date, publisher, URL, ISBN |
Journal article (paper) | author, article title, journal title, date, volume, issue number, pages |
Journal article (electronic) | author, article title, journal title, date, volume, issue number, pages, URL |
Website | author or organisation, title, URL, date you visited the site |
Video | director, title of video, date |
Podcast | title, date, broadcaster, URL, type of podcast |