When you start to search for information on a topics, it is useful to first get a general overview of the topic, its context and the terms that you can use in catalogue and database searches.

Overviews can be:
encyclopaedias, dictionaries, handbooks
fact sheets
news items for recent developments

These sources may be in print in the Library, or they may be on the World Wide Web. You can find them through:

• Resource Guides on the Library's website
• Web search engines
• the Library catalogue (see Section 5 of this tutorial: Searching for information: finding books)

Resource guides (subject guides)

From the Library Web Home page, choose the Resource guides tab then the subject(s) of interest to you. For example:

Agriculture
Soil and land systems
Environmental studies

Web search engines

• Try a variety of search engines.
• Look at their help.
• Use Advanced or Power search options rather than simple keyword searches.
• Check what search functions are available, either through commands or through forms:
  • Boolean AND, OR, NOT or NEAR operators similar to those used in the Library catalogue
  • + before a term (e.g. +wetlands) to indicate that a term must be present
  • phrases in quotation marks e.g. "mad cow disease"
  • searching for proper names by capitalization e.g. "South Australia"
  • Truncation (e.g. wetland*) to find plurals etc or automatic truncation.
• Can you search for a term in the title of a web page rather than the whole page? This increases the page's relevancy but you may miss some useful pages.
• Can you search for certain kinds of Web site (government, educational)?
• You may need to try more than one search engine since they differ in content and depth and produce different results.

Assessing information

• What terms recur in the sources you are looking at? i.e. do the same terms appear in different sources?
• Are there limits you wish to set, e.g. this topic is limited geographically to Australia.  Do you want to extend your search to other countries? Should there be limits to particular industries, e.g. grain crops, animal production? (if choosing a different topic)
• What other aspects should you be thinking about that are relevant to your topic as suggested by your lecturer, e.g. alternative agriculture?
• What are the dates of the information you find? Do you need more recent/earlier information? Is the topic well developed with extensive literature?
• Do the overview sources have lists of useful references (bibliographies)?

Learn not to take Internet material at face value. Quality can vary from the useful and reliable to the trivial, inaccurate or misleading. To assess the quality and reliability of an Internet source, ask:

• What are the author's credentials? For instance, is the author associated with a university or government body? Are the author's qualifications, experience, title, position or reasons for interest in the subject clear? Is a means of contacting the author given?
• Is the journal containing an article peer reviewed? Can results be verified elsewhere? Are there references to other literature to justify claims or support data?
• Are results presented systematically and arguments well reasoned? Is a document trying to sell a particular commercial point of view? How up to date are the content and cited references?

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