(x) truest thing i’ve seen in a while

This is also my experience with my 16-18 year old students. Though they will at least look at the first three articles google gives them…and then give up if they can’t find the exact information

I just wish they knew how to use keywords. Yes, search engines have become really good at interpreting full phrases and pulling keywords from conversational requests, but you can search so much more efficiently if you don’t make them do that.

This also speaks… badly… for the future of misinformation on the internet. No matter how many classes we run about reliable sources.

We literally just had a really great discussion in my class (library of information science degree) about information literacy and who is teaching it to the newer generations and how linked data fits in with it. The answer for some of it is the english teacher does for the most part but kids retain it better and use it faster when the teacher works with the school librarian. Also it depends on what device is being used. Because of the data that search engines keep a teacher and a student can search for the same exact phrase or terminology and they will have completely different results. With the teachers being more relevant because they use their device for work rather than play.

#the keywords confuse the shit out of me#I can’t keep them straight in my head and mix them all up#half the time when I use them it tells me there are no search results.#they only told me about them my junior year of collage so I was already fucked 

If you wanted to yell your request for information to your friend on the other side of a loud, crowded party in, like, 3 words, what 3 words would you pick? Those are your search terms.

So in our example in the first post, you do NOT type the full question into your search engine. Making google parse things like ‘list’, ‘5′, and ‘explain’ is going to muddy your results, and this is especially true if you care enough about your data that you’re not using google. Your search terms (WITHOUT quotation marks) would be “famous Africans”, or “famous African people” or “prominent Africans” if you want to be more discerning about what kinds of answers you get.

If you do a lot of online research (as kids in school should do), you pretty quickly get a sense of what sorts of terms are best. For instance, “famous African people” is better than “famous Africans” because the latter is likely to be keywords in a lot of fluff journal article titles, whereas “famous African people” is more likely to bring up lists. “Prominent” will bring up more wealthy businessmen and political leaders, whereas “famous” will bring up more entertainers. But any of these will work. Just pretend the search engine is someone who can’t hear you very well and wants the clearest question in the smallest number of words.

(Although this specific example is bad because anyone with internet research experience answering this question would just go straight to wikipedia, who have lists of these kinds of things, and pick 5 names they like the sound of).

Also, if you wanna get fancy, print this out and stick it on your wall:

(link to higher resolution image)

It will make your life SO MUCH easier. (And, as you can see, this is why typing some questions into google verbatim is a bad idea, especially if you don’t use quotation marks. Not using the quotes and typing in anything with ‘and’ or ‘or’ in it can confuse the search engine.)

Oh wow! Didn’t know a few of these

There are a lot more, but only techies and detectives need them. These ones are sufficient for most of us.

Oomph, for the whole keywords thing if you are on a school database or any database with peer reviewed journals/articles, there will be a thesaurus or an index where you can search for the keywords (aka the controlled vocabulary) that are used on that database. It’s generally kept by the tools or help button or searched easily enough if they dont out right post the button. So if you are looking up journal articles on a specific topic or by a specific person you can search the index for that topic or term and it will tell you outright how many times that term appears within the database and give you alternate terms that are close to it. For example if you are searching for Mary Bolin it might bring up results for

Bolin, Mary

Bolin, Mary A.

Bolin , Mary K.

And so on.

If you are searching for a topic it will tell you the same thing or might even bring up alternate like terms so if you were searching for Behavior Therapy it might bring up

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Behavior

Therapy

Skinner, B. F.

And so on.

Legit controlled vocabulary or (CV) will change with each database but the only nice thing about big publishers having control over all of the articles is that the CV doesnt change as much.

Here is a quick video that explains what boolean operators are and how to use them on databases and search engines that will help narrow or broaden your searches even more.

I have another class day today and don’t want to get started on boolean or Google.

I dont go to this library school but it seems legit enough.

Also check out your local library they generally have awesome databases you can use that are prepaid through your tax dollars if you live in the states.

Additionally, in most databases and library catalogs/websites, you should have an option called “advanced search” or something similar (often in smaller text near the main search box). While you can plug boolean operators and other search tips into the regular search box, usually the advanced search option will make it easier.

For example, the ProQuest Central database (a large, multi-disciplinary databases that can cover scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, and more) landing page looks like this

Clicking the Advanced Search option takes us to this page, which I have filled in with search terms similar to those used in the video:

There are more options I cut off–options to choose the language of results, source type (government publication? newspaper? dissertation? etc.), and more.

Based on the results you get, you can adjust your search. Not many results? Your search needs to be broader, and/or you need to try different keywords or combinations. Too many results? You need to narrow the search, or add more qualifiers to reduce the irrelevant results. Results are mostly things you’re not actually searching for? See what the main things are that you don’t want, and redo your search to exclude them (like “mouse NOT Mickey”) or decide on better keywords/keyword combinations.

For example, when I searched for variations on cat or feline therapy, even including qualifiers like dementia or Alzheimer’s, I was mostly getting results about therapy for cats with dementia-like symptoms, or therapy for feline leukemia. So I redid my search to be about “cats or dogs and dementia or Alzheimers” just to see the results, and they were much better. 

When I found an article that looked promising, I checked the details, and you’ll notice that between the abstract (its summary) and the “subjects” listed, I see a new phrase that could help me in further searches: “animal-assisted therapy.”

So if I were continuing this line of research, I could go back to my initial search results (if they looked promising), and/or do a new search including “animal-assisted therapy” and cats.

Well as long as we’re talking about the ancient internet, who remembers this.

… I just realised that some of my mutuals are Too Young to get flashbacks from this. I hate the internet.

many a late night was spent to achieve this

//ALRIGHT YOU LOT, TIME FOR THE RUNDOWN! Basically, this is open to anyone interested, which means people on my timeline who don’t have Naruto muses but wanna play in the Naruto universe, are welcome too! As are OCs, and characters that have little to no canon history.

The...

Help me find Pandora!

She went missing in the Clayton Park/Fairview area of Halifax, Nova Scotia sometime on Sunday. She has health issues and needs to get to the vet ASAP!! There is also worry that raccoons might get her before I can.

How can you help?

I’ve made a Twitter for her @FERRETQUEST and am trying to get #findpandora and #ferretquest trending so I can try to get a local interest segment on the news here.

Please reblog this with #ferretquest, #findpandora and any additional, relevant, tags! Also please retweet her Tweets!

Thank you.

Another thing, really. I keep meaning to link it, but I keep forgetting. Not too long ago, a future AU rp thread gave me ideas. And one of those ideas clung. The idea that clung resulted in the start of a Korra/Tahno fanfic. What was originally going to be a couple of little vignettes, turned into...

It's been over a year since I wrote this and I still like it. I'd really appreciate anyone interested to give it a read and offer any feedback.

ALL THE AWARDS.

THIS FUCKING SCENE OH MY GOD 

watch this irish man get tragically crushed by adorable sneezing baby seals

DO NOT WORRY, HUMAN, WE WILL KEEP YOU WARM UNTIL YOUR PARENTS RETURN FOR YOU. I HAVE CALLED FOR HELP.

Look at them! They’re basically flumpy water dogs!

Look how happy he is! 

who else went to the library as a little kid, and 

come on, I can’t be the only freak

Have you planted any Easter eggs in the show? David Peterson: One of the biggest is from Episode 3 this season. There’s a scene where the Meereenese rider is challenging Daenerys’ champion. He’s shouting and Nathalie Emmanuel [Missandei] is translating – but she’s not translating what he’s saying. He’s actually saying a Low Valyrian translation of the French guy’s insults in ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail.’ That was [series creator] Dan Weiss’s idea and it was so hilarious that I had to do it.

Have fans caught on? David Peterson: They know that something’s going on. Right after that episode aired, I was getting tweets like, “Is he saying a ‘your momma’ joke?” Close… But no, he’s actually starting out with, “Your mother is a hamster.”  (x)

a tv show about ruining hot dads emotionally, mentally and physically called “breaking dad”

this kind of art is so important 

I’m so fucking done

Fascinating Maps of the Most Commonly Spoken Languages in the United States Other Than English

Beautiful vocal version of Jeremy Zuckerman’s Legend of Korra score! Check it out!

Incredible! Such a sublime rendition by the Audire Soundtrack Choir at the Berklee College of Music (Jeremy Zuckerman’s alma mater) featuring spoken word by Dante Basco.