Thing 10: Search Strategies

After reviewing the MeL Educational Databases, I chose to compare/contrast SIRS

Discoverer Deluxe and SIRS Renaissance. The topic I chose to search was the American
Revolution. I like that both sites have you select a general category for your research before you
are able to search a specific topic. SIRS Renaissances categories seemed a bit more focused
while SIRS Discover was a bit more general. I preferred the set-up of the Discoverer search to
the Renaissance search because you could sort the resource options by the grade-level of the
students which I think would be very helpful for getting age-appropriate sources. The content
both databases took me too was helpful, but again the content of Renaissance seemed a bit more
specific to given aspects of the revolution whereas Discoverer offered more all-encompassing
sources for the revolution as a whole; Discoverers first hit is a link to Encyclopedia Britannica,
which covers different aspects under different headings, whereas Renaissance immediately
displays a variety of articles addressing different aspects of the revolution. The content offered
through both bases seems equally credible though, so deciding which database is better just
seems to be a matter of whether youd like more summative sources or more unique and
specified articles.

Databases future students may find useful:

-Culture Grams http://online.culturegrams.com/index.php
-InfoTrac Newstand http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?
p=STND&u=lom_accessmich&authCount=1
-LegalTrac http://www.galesupport.com/migeoipcheck/migeoipcheck-gale.php?
database=LT
-Michigana
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/Michigana;jsessionid=65886CEBB04412AA2CB5C
A2EB02D4EA3?locID=lom_accessmich
-New York Times http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?
p=SPN.SP00&u=lom_accessmich&authCount=1&selfRedirect=true
-Opposing Viewpoints http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/?p=OVIC&u=lom_accessmich
-SIRS Discoverer http://discoverer.prod.sirs.com/discoweb/disco/do/frontpage
-SIRS Renaissance http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-portal-display?id=SMI3344-0-6938
-American Memory http://memory.loc.gov

Hoax Sites:
The Hoax site I chose to visit was http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/. Using the Joyce
Valenza criteria for evaluating sites, it was clear that this was not a credible source. There was no
indication that the author of the site had any credible authority, and he site was also not
associated with any type of credible sponsor or organization. The information provided is also
not very accurate. The site claims that the moisture of the climate allows the octopus to be
amphibious, but octopi cannot survive without salt-water, so freshwater of the climate would not
sustain it. There is also no indication of dates of publication or dates of recent updates. There
also does not seem to be much of a purpose behind the site.
The second website I visited, http://www.fulkerson.org/ancestors/buyanancestor.html,
was very clearly a hoax site as well. The headline is Buy and Ancestor Online, which is
obviously not possible. There is no credible author or organization associated with the site, and at
the bottom is very clearly says not to call the police when looking for make sure the purchasing
of ancestors is legal in your state.

Citation Creator:
I used citation machine to create a MLA citation for an article I was reading from the
Christian Science Monitor. This is the citation I created:
Marquand, Robert. "Nigeria Says Military Has Freed 178 Captives of Boko
Haram." The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Aug. 2015. Web.
3 Aug. 2015.