Exercise 2-1E: Evidence in the Natural Sciences

With your group, decide on a general scientific topic of interest. Assign each person a database from the chart on page 10 of the THWG: make sure at least one example of each of the three categories “one-stop shops,” “overviews, news, and summaries,” “reference tools,” are included in your selections. 

1. 1. Spend approximately 5-7 minutes searching for your topic in the database you chose. 
   2. Next, consider what kinds of materials you found and write responses to the following questions in your group’s shared Google doc (linked below):
      1. How would you describe the list of sources you compiled?
      2. How quickly were you able to find and compile the list?
      3. How challenging was it to navigate to sources?
      4. How accessible were the sources you found?
   3. Discuss your findings with your group for about 10-15 minutes. Discuss each person’s experience of searching and compare the resulting list of sources. Then, come up with a written set of recommendations for each type of source. At what stage in the research process, or for what purposes, would you consult the following?
      1. One-stop shops (Scopus, Web of Knowledge, etc.)
      2. Overviews, News, and Summaries (Science Daily, CQ Researcher)
      3. Reference Tools (CDC, Science in Context)
   4. Record your recommendations in your Google doc, based on your conversation.

For an editable Google doc of this exercise that you can download, click here.