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FIG - Urban Garden

Research Guides Home | News | Tutorials | Citing Sources | Reference Sources | Evaluating Sources


This page should help you with your FIG research assignment. You may also want to try the UO Libraries LibX Toolbar for your browser!

Answer the wrap-up question here.

Annie
Victoria Mitchell - Librarian for: Political Science,  Government Information, and Social Science Data

ph: 346-3076 vmitch@uoregon.edu


Find an article here:


The above search box is searching the following specific databases, that you might want to try individually:

Academic Search Premier

  • Good for its mix of popular, news and scholarly articles. You have to exercise your critical evaluation skills to help determine what's what. (Do NOT rely solely on their limit to peer-reviewed feature--it is not reliable.)
Agricola
  • Database of the National Agricultural Library. Covers journal articles, books, and more, in all aspects of agriculture and forestry, including agroecology, botany, entomology/pest control, irrigation, labor issues, etc.

Web of Science

  • Interdisciplinary database that includes all the social sciences. Special feature is the ability to find articles that cite an article or author.
See also:

Google Scholar

  • Google for academics. 
This worksheet will help you develop keyword searches that get results.

Find a book

in UOWorldCat (UO Libraries and beyond)

A few book search tips:
  • Use general terms, as opposed to the more specific terms used for searching for articles. E.g., if you want books about genetically modified plants' effects on pollinators, you will find more by looking just for genetically modified plants and environmental.
  • UO WorldCat searches for articles, and many other formats besides books. To limit to books, click on 'book' under format on the left side.
  • You may get better results if you do a Subject Heading search for a broad term. To do a search by Subject, go to Advanced Search. You also can click on the subject heading links at the bottom of the full record display for a book that you like, to get more like it. For instance, the subject heading for genetically modified plants is "transgenic plants".

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Latest news in agriculture & food

 

Tutorials


Short Video: How to read a scientific journal article
Although this is about a scientific article, a lot of the principles apply to any scholarly journal article, especially if it involves empirical research.

Short Video: Evaluating Websites


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Reference Sources

off-campus access limited to UO = You must be on campus, or an authorized UO user if off campus, to access)
 

Encyclopedia of Earth
This free, web encyclopedia is based on a Wikipedia-like model, but articles are contributed by people with expertise in the fields they are writing about and are reviewed by a board of expert editors.  It has content on food and agriculture, environmental design, water resources, and much more.

Encyclopedia of Hydrological Sciences off-campus access limited to UO

  • See articles under the section 'Land Use and Water Management' for some excellent, in-depth, but overview, articles, if you are doing this topic.

The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening (4 vols.) AAA REF & SCI REF SB450.95 .N48 1992

Oxford Reference Online - Art & Architecture off-campus access limited to UO

  • Includes the Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the Oxford Companion to the Garden.

Oxford Reference Online - Biological Sciences off-campus access limited to UO
Includes the Dictionary of Ecology and Dictionary of Plant Sciences.

Sunset Western Garden Book AAA REF SB453.2.W4 S9 1995

  • The "bible" on gardening in the Western states.
Water: Science & Issues off-campus access limited to UO also in print: SCI REF GB 655 .D37
  •  This 4-volume encyclopedia covers basic issues and can provide you some good background information.
 
Compare the above reference sources with:
Wikipedia
  • Do the articles have identified authors? Are the authors' credentials and affiliations available? Do the articles have references or bibliographies? If so, are there differences in the kinds of references given?
  • Wikipedia is a very handy, free Internet source, but it is not necessarily reliable. For a humorous demonstration of this phenomenon, watch this excerpt of the Colbert Report. (This is a bit dated now, as changes have been made to Wikipedia since this was aired, but it's still worth watching.)

 
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Evaluating Sources


For your in-class exercise (click on the pdf link on the left):

Article #1
Article #2
Websites -- if you have time, compare the following, looking for information about the author or sponsor of the website, bias, commercial interest (if any), scholarly qualities (if any):
Website #1
Website #2
Website #3

This web page contains a wealth of information on evaluating information sources both in print and on the Web: Critical Evaluation of Information Sources
If the above page is TOO much information for you, check out:
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: or, Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources (Susan E. Beck, New Mexico State University)
    Still my favorite site on web evaluation for its brevity and clarity -- see 'Criteria' section.
To determine whether a particular periodical (magazine, journal) is scholarly (peer-reviewed, refereed) or popular, see these pages:

What is "peer-review"?


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Maintained by: Victoria Mitchell, vmitch@uoregon.edu