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BIOS 090 Fall 2024 How Can We Harness the Oceans to Solve Societal Needs?

Class exercise

If you have questions about the class assignment, contact Brian Simboli   8-5003;  brs4@lehigh.edu

If you have questions related to your projects, contact Heather Simoneau 8-3052; hms207@lehigh.edu


CLASS EXERCISE

Due by the following class on Sept 2.  Please post replies to CourseSite. 

You may want to read the essay assignment before you start working on it.

As you find sources, put your answers to the questions below into the Word document at the bottom of this page. 

Read over the essay assignment linked in Course Site.  

Select from the list of topics in the assignment and list the topic in the Word document. Then in the document record answers to the following. [Word document is linked at the bottom of this page.]

1. Find background information

"Background information" gives a broad overview of your topic and/or helps clarify concepts or terminology you encounter in your research. Find one example of each of the following three types of background information.

(a)  Find one website

Open Advanced Google search.

Tips:

  • use the limit to “.gov” (government) or .edu (educational) items.
  • all these words is like using AND between them 
  • any of these words is like using OR between them.

Use it to find a website that satisfies the criteria for website reliability--called the "craap" test--in the page of this guide about evaluating sources. Indicate why you think the website is reliable. 

Do not use Wikipedia as one of the answers, though Wikipedia can be a stepping stone to finding other articles.

Put the title and the URL of the webpage into the word document.

(b) Find one encyclopedia article 

Go to the Finding Sources of this guide, then see the box about "Background Information Sources" and find the encyclopedia tab.

Record the title of the encyclopedia article and its URL in your Word document. (Note--do not use encyclopedia articles as a source in your paper; just use them to get background information.)

(c) Find one ebook

Go to ASA, the search engine near the top of the library homepage.     

Go to Library Single Search. From the drag down menu, select books. Put in a search statement.  When the results come up, you can limit to eBook; to do so, see "Refine Results" on the upper right.  Also, select "date descending" so that you see more recent items.

Record the book title in the word document.


2. Find one popular article 

First, go to the "Evaluating Sources" page on the left. Read the page “Scholarly versus Popular Articles”.

Then go to the "Finding Sources" page on the left and scroll down to find  "Article Databases", and click on the tab labeled "Popular Magazines & Newspapers". Newspapers and magazine articles are examples of "popular articles".

You can also find a popular article by searching Advanced Google; at the top of the page of search results click on news.

Some of the databases also allow you to find scholarly articles, so follow the details in those cases about how to limit your results to popular (not scholarly) articles.


3. Find two scholarly articles

Go to the "Finding Sources page", scroll down to the Article Databases box, and select the "Scholarly" tab. Some of the databases have popular articles, so make sure to follow the instructions for finding scholarly articles.

Find a scholarly article in the search results. Read the abstract.

See if you can get to the full text of the article. Either the database itself will link to the full text, or you can get to it from "Lehigh Links"  or you will would have to order it via "ILLiad" from Lehigh Links. Please indicate what you find. (No need to order the article via ILLiad at this point! You can do that later, as you start writing.) For a refresher about "Lehigh Links", go to the "Finding Sources" page of this guide and scroll down to see the box "Accessing Full Text".

TIP: the search results from some databases link to articles published later in time that cite the article in the search results. These links can help you find a second relevant article.


4. Find one Review Article

"Review articles" are a special type of scholarly article that provides a high-level overview of recent developments in a field. They can contain valuable bibliography. Often you can tell that an article is a review article because the title is somewhat more “generic” sounding  than other articles that are much more narrowly focused and that report very specific research findings. Think of review articles as providing a sort of high-level background information before you start doing research.

Do not confuse review articles with:

  • book reviews, i.e., when someone writes an article that critiques a book
  • "peer review". "Review articles" are a type of scholarly article, while peer review is the process by which experts evaluate an article someone wants to publish in a scholarly journal.

A good review article can be a great starting place for your initial research, after you have reviewed background information and before you read scholarly articles whose focus is not on reviewing literature.

Search for a review article in one of the three ways below.  Tip: sort the results with most recent first.  If you can't find one quickly, find one that is at least somewhat related. After you find one, record the name of the database in which you found the article plus the article title

Option 1 for finding a review article.

Try Web of Science to find one. For an overview of searching this database, see the "short tutorial" elsewhere in this guide. 

In the search results, look on the left to filter for review articles. See below:

 

Option 2 for finding a review article. 

Search the Annual Reviews database to find a review article about your topic. Make sure you sort the results by most recently published.

Option 3 for finding a review article.

Do a Google Scholar search. For an overview of searching this database, see the "short tutorial" elsewhere in this guide. In your search results, look for "Review article" on the lower left. Make that the items that come up when you click review are review journal articles, not book reviews or something else. Here is a tutorial about using Google Scholar.

5. Cite one of the scholarly articles in APA style.

Steps

(i)  Watch the video tutorial here: https://libguides.csudh.edu/citation/apa-7

(ii) Use ZoteroBib to put your articles into APA style. See the page of this guide "Citing Your Work" for how to use ZoteroBib.

(iii) Tools like ZoteroBib will not always render a reference accurately. Check the reference you found by using ZoteroBib against the examples for citing here. That is, see if ZoteroBib left out anything or had an inaccuracy. You can make edits within ZoteroBib.

[NOTE: at the bottom of this page are further notes about APA style to review when you write your paper.]

For example, this paper has a DOI [unique identifier] of https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02203-x    Putting that DOI into ZoteroBib brings up:

Lyons, T. J., Tuckett, Q. M., Durland Donahou, A., & Hill, J. E. (2020). Risk screen of lionfishes, pterois, dendrochirus, and parapterois, for southeastern united states coastal waters of the gulf of mexico and atlantic ocean. Biological Invasions22(5), 1573–1583. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-020-02203-x

Now compare it to APA style for journal articles on this library guide:

6. Set up an ILLiad account

While you won’t use it for this exercise, spend two minutes setting up an ILLiad account. Go to http://library.lehigh.edu/ill. ILLiad enables you to order articles or books that Lehigh does not have. Click on ILLiad. Fill out required one-time registration information. *You don’t need to order articles for the exercise, but you may find ILLiad useful later in the course.* Wait until you are sure you need an article before using ILLiad.

Palci on the webpage on the same webpage is another service normally used to find print books that Lehigh does not have; it can be useful throughout your career at Lehigh.

7. Doing presentations and finding images/visuals

Review the material under "presentations and visuals" of this guide. The essay requires two visuals. Look for them as you get further along on your paper.

FOR LATER REFERENCE WHEN WRITING YOUR PAPER:

 

1.

We focused in the exercise on formatting a journal article reference in APA. Go here to see how to cite formats other than journal articles, such as books.

2.

When you write your paper, keep in mind the distinction between "in-text" citations. on the one hand,  and references collected at the end of the paper, on the other.

To learn more about using ZoteroBib for in-text citations, see the video tutorial about ZoteroBib in this guide.

For examples of in-text citations, see here.  

3.

Here is another resource for information about APA:   Purdue OWL.

4.

See the Writing Tips page of this guide, including "Using Headers in Microsoft Word When Writing". The latter describes a flexible way to use headers to create an outline structure that appears in a navigation pane; you can easily move the headers around within the pane.