tool to use to determine if a journal is peer-reviewed

We learned about this briefly in the Scholarly vs. Popular session.  I mentioned this today in class in case you're not sure whether the journals articles you found were from scholarly journals (that is, peer-reviewed journals).  You can use the reference book called Ulrich's Periodical Directory (2009) in the Reference Collection (call number REF Z6941 .U51 2009).  The last volume (vol 4) has a title index, which is easy to use.  Those journals that are peer-reviewed have graduation cap icons next to them.

Hope this will help you determine whether your source is scholarly.

As I mentioned in the class, find the journal's official web site will also help.  It will list information about the journal for example if it's peer-reviewed, its peer-review committee, chief editor, etc.

lecture for today and exam answer sheet

Today's lecture on documenting sources and plagiarism is uploaded and linked to the syllabus.

I also linked the answer sheet to the exam to the syllabus under today's session.

Exam today

Dear students,

I just emailed you the link to the exam (if for some reason, you didn't receive the email, here's the link again: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=B4R_2fMUOBzy_2bv1maJ1Lm2Gg_3d_3d).  You are on your own to take the exam (you have 1.5 hours to finish the exam which should be more than enough).

As I indicated in the email, I'm not feeling well today so I'm staying home to get well.  The exam was made last week, however, I have a last minute Internet connection problem at home today, and I have to go to a public library to use the Internet.  I'm not able to update the syllabus (with the exam link) since they don't have Dreamweaver here.

Sorry for sending the link a bit late and for the inconvenience that this may cause.

review for exam

Dear students,

I've posted the link to the review sheet for next Monday's exam on the syllabus under session 10.  Make sure that you understand all the points on the sheet.

 

answer sheet for Quiz 3

It is posted on the syllabus under Session 9 (Nov. 16), yesterday's class.

Again, for those that can't open the files (PPT, MS Word 2007 files) on the syllabus, try to use Firefox as your Web browser, that should solve the problem.  For your convenience, I've included the link here to download the newest version of Firefox.

make sure you're looking at the right stuff (databases, readings, web links)

I assume that you already know (from the class sessions to this day) ... I guess I was wrong.  If I mention a database (in a quiz or exercise), you get to the database from the CofC Libraries Web site (http://www.cofc.edu/library/), then click on the "article databases" tab to get to the A-Z list of databases; or get to a database from LibGuides --> Majors & Minors --> click on a specific discipline such as biology --> click on "find articles" in the case you only have a broad topic.  YOU DON'T JUST DO A GOOGLE SEARCH AND CLICK ON WHATEVER LINK IT GIVES YOU.

And if you are one of the few that are still confused, you really need to REVIEW the ppt lectures for class sessions 6 & 7 (we talked about access tools such as subscription databases, LibGuides, etc.).  We paid for subscription DBs, so you have to click on the links from our library Web site not from anywhere else.

Also, if I mention a quiz is based on readings from a specific session, you NEED to click on those links (not something else that you found on the Web).  For example, for quiz 2, the link to Library of Congress Classification Outline is on the syllabus under session 3.

Feel free to email me or come to talk to me if you're still confused (if the talk is lengthy, just email me to make an appointment, I'll be happy to schedule a time to talk).

PPT, flow-chart for today's session

I've uploaded the PPT, flow-chart (How to Get Journal Articles) to the syllabus, please review them.  Especially the flow-chart, that shows you how to get your hands on the articles that you need (from searching our databases).  You need to understand that, for the final project, you need to get the actual articles, not just the citations to the articles.

PPT for today's class (Session 6) and readings

I've uploaded that to the syllabus, so please review it, sorry for going through it in a rush today.

For slide 21, the link is for Academic Search Premier's help screen.  Please read through that to get a better idea of search techniques in a real database (that's not just for ASP, that's for all EBSCOhost databases).  Here's how to get to that:
1. on the library website, click on Article Databases, then click on A (http://www.cofc.edu/library/find/databases/index.php#a),
2. click on the database Academic Search Premier,
3. click on the help (top right corner) screen,
4. peruse these linked pages for search techniques
under Searching:
Booleans,
Including Phrases in a Search,
Proximity Searches,
Wildcard and Truncation Symbols,
under Browsing:
Thesaurus 

Besides that, if there are further readings links on the syllabus, please read those too.

Exercise 1

For some reason, you guys didn't do well on Exercise 1.  If I have time today after the planned lecture, I'll go over them w/ you all.  If not, I'll post the answers online for you to view.

Reminder: Exercise 2 and Quiz 2

Just to remind those that haven't done Exercise 2 and/or open Quiz 2 yet, they are due today before class (3pm, 11/4).

Again, late assignments (including exercises, open quizzes, etc.) will be docked 10% per day after due time, which is clearly stated on the Course Info page.  This is the last time that I will remind you, since I don't want to bore the good students that always submit stuff on time for the class.

Exercise 1

Instead of a quiz, I created an exercise for you to do after Monday's class (Library Catalogs: CofC Lib Catalog, PASCAL Delivers, and ILL).
As usual, the exercise will be due before the coming Wed's class.

Session 3 and 4

Mr. Steven Profit will be teaching the coming Monday and Wednesday's classes for me while I'm attending a conference in CA.

He's a very knowledgeable and friendly librarian, ask him if you have any questions regarding the class materials.

I've already uploaded the PPTs for session 3 and 4, for you to review after the class sessions.

Pre-test and Quiz 1

They are both linked on the Syllabus now.

They will be due before our class on Wed. Oct. 21.

Welcome to our first class

I'm glad to see everyone that made to the first class of our LIBR 105!  I hope that you are all excited to start this library research class with me.  And I hope that you found the library tour after the course introduction to be informative.

I'd love to know why you're attending this class, let me know by commenting on this post.  (to satisfy credit requirements? to learn about library research skills? what else?)