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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette

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Speaker 1: and I am an editor here at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Sitting across from me as usual, at least

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Speaker 1: as far as when I looked it up last, is

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Speaker 1: senior writer Jonathan Strickland. There's special providence in the fall

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Speaker 1: of a sparrow. Okay, and guess what, guys, it's your

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Speaker 1: job to look that up and tell me where it's from.

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Speaker 1: Special listener challenge. Yeah, it's it's easy enough. Um. So

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about conducting research online. I'll to

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Speaker 1: use online tools to research. Because a lot of you

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Speaker 1: out there are in middle school and high school. We

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Speaker 1: get emails from you all the time, and first of all,

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Speaker 1: shout out to all of you guys. You guys are

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Speaker 1: awesome and keep up the great work, especially listening to

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Speaker 1: wonderful podcasts like ours. But beyond that, we've also received

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Speaker 1: email from others who have asked us about research techniques.

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Speaker 1: UM see uh Is and Marie Right and Marie I

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Speaker 1: see I didn't write your name down, Emory. I apologize.

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Speaker 1: And Marie has written to us on a couple of

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Speaker 1: occasions asking if we might address research techniques and citations

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Speaker 1: things like that. Well, really, the whole citations element is

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Speaker 1: kind of outside the scope of tech stuff, but we

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Speaker 1: can certainly address how to conduct research online and how

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Speaker 1: to get the best information for whatever it is that

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Speaker 1: you're searching for. UM, because a lot of us are

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Speaker 1: just simply using Google in the most basic way and

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Speaker 1: not getting the best information. Google is doing a lot

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Speaker 1: behind the scenes to try and give us the best

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Speaker 1: information based upon what we tell Google we want to see,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes it has to make guesses. Sometimes the keywords

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Speaker 1: we throw in there are just a mishmash, and Google's like, well,

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Speaker 1: I'll give you this. I think it's what you want.

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Speaker 1: But there are ways where you can you can refine

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Speaker 1: your search, whether you're using Google or some other search methods,

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Speaker 1: some other search engine. I use Google because it's almost

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Speaker 1: become like xerox or Kleenex the universal term, but I

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Speaker 1: do realize that people use other search engines. Um, there

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Speaker 1: are techniques you can use to get the best information possible. Yes, UM,

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Speaker 1: actually I would recommend this really groovy article on how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com about the Google algorithm and what

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Speaker 1: makes it so special. I was written by as a hack,

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Speaker 1: some guy Strickland. Anyway, Yeah, if you if you're really

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Speaker 1: interested in knowing how Google specifically works, because Google sort

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Speaker 1: of revolutionized the search industry online. I mean for many

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Speaker 1: years when Yahoo was doing everybody loved Yahoo, but they

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Speaker 1: were doing it by end, which is actually a very

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Speaker 1: effective way to do it, except in that it requires

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Speaker 1: a lot of people and a lot of time to

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Speaker 1: do that, which and of course, as more people joined

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Speaker 1: the Internet, more content was created on the Internet, meaning

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Speaker 1: more content had to be sorted through, so it becomes

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Speaker 1: a losing game eventually, because unless you have hired everyone

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Speaker 1: on the planet to also help categorize and rank information,

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Speaker 1: you just can't keep up with the amount of info

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Speaker 1: that's out there. So Google's algorithm helped automate that, so

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Speaker 1: you didn't have to worry about doing it by hand. Yes,

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Speaker 1: but I know you did want to to speak on

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Speaker 1: a specific tactic if you want to use Google more effectively. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk a little bit about bullying logic. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's named after George bole Yes and bullying logic is

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Speaker 1: a fairly complex UH concept, but it's a it's a

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Speaker 1: mathematical concept, right. It's a way, it's the way of

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Speaker 1: using operators to UH to make an argument or search

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Speaker 1: for information. As it turns out, because a lot of

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Speaker 1: arch engines are very good at at incorporating Boolean logic,

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Speaker 1: so not all of them, not all of them, and

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Speaker 1: some of them have a specific advanced search function that

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Speaker 1: makes this even easier. But we're going to go through

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Speaker 1: the basic operators and what they do and what they

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Speaker 1: mean within most search engines, and then we'll talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit maybe about advanced search options, and then we'll

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Speaker 1: go into more detail about other other things online that

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Speaker 1: you can use for for research. So the basic operators

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Speaker 1: and Boolean logic, as far as it pertains to search,

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Speaker 1: are and or and not. Okay, So I'll start with OR.

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Speaker 1: Now OR helps you increase your your range of searches.

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Speaker 1: You know your search results. You're gonna get a wider

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Speaker 1: range of search results using or as an operator. And

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Speaker 1: this lets you search for two terms. Usually you're using

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Speaker 1: two terms that are kind of interchangeable or mean more

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Speaker 1: or less the same thing. Um and you use that

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Speaker 1: to try and get a wider net of results. So

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Speaker 1: you might say, uh, dogs or canines in your search,

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Speaker 1: and then you're going to get search results that have

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Speaker 1: the keyword dogs or canines featured in them in some way,

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Speaker 1: because some results may use one term and the others

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Speaker 1: may use another, and you want to be able to

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Speaker 1: see everything that's out there, So you're gonna get more

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Speaker 1: results that way than if you search for just dogs

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Speaker 1: or just canines. Um. Now, if you use and, you

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Speaker 1: might think, oh, well, doesn't that do the same thing. Actually, no,

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Speaker 1: and narrows your search because with and, it's going to

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Speaker 1: look for search results that have both terms. And when

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Speaker 1: I say both, you should keep in mind this is

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Speaker 1: not limited to just to search terms. Technically, you can

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Speaker 1: throw in as many search terms as you want and uh,

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Speaker 1: it just is going to continually narrow your field of arch.

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Speaker 1: So in this case, you may want to look for

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Speaker 1: let's let's say you're searching for horror and science fiction.

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Speaker 1: You're only going to get results that have both of

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Speaker 1: those terms in them. Right now, if you use horror

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Speaker 1: or science fiction, you would get all of them had

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Speaker 1: either or both of those terms. So and narrows your search.

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Speaker 1: This can be really helpful if you're looking for specific

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Speaker 1: news about a particular topic. So if you did Gulf

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Speaker 1: of Mexico and oil spill and solutions, that would help

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Speaker 1: you narrow your search to potential solutions to fix the

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Speaker 1: oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, right theoretically anyway, Um,

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Speaker 1: and then there is think you think the company would

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Speaker 1: have lifted those up? Yeah? Oh, there it is. It's

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Speaker 1: on Google. Oh we're gonna get male. I'm kidding, BP,

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Speaker 1: Please don't send your goons after us. I notice I

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Speaker 1: didn't say who it was son of up. So anyway,

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Speaker 1: let's get to the third one. Not now not helps

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Speaker 1: you get search results for one term and excludes results

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Speaker 1: that contain a specific related term. So let's say that

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Speaker 1: you want to do a research on on mice but

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Speaker 1: not you don't want anything to do about rats, So

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Speaker 1: you could do a search for mice not rats, and

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Speaker 1: you would only get search results that talked about mice.

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Speaker 1: If rats were mentioned in the search, in the in

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Speaker 1: the in the page, it would be excluded from the

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Speaker 1: search results. So again, it's another way to narrow your

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Speaker 1: search so that you don't get information that is not

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Speaker 1: relevant to what you need. Now, advanced search options usually

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Speaker 1: make this easier because I mean, you can type these

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Speaker 1: things in actually, and you usually don't need to type

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Speaker 1: in at all. That's understood. If you just do a

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Speaker 1: string of keywords in your search, it's the search engine

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Speaker 1: generally a suit whoms that you mean and Yes, But

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Speaker 1: when you're using the bullion operators um, if you really

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Speaker 1: specifically want to use them, you do need to put

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Speaker 1: them in all caps yes, because because that's that's the

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Speaker 1: thing that tells it, Oh, you specifically want these things.

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Speaker 1: And if you're looking for a specific search string which

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Speaker 1: includes things uh, words that would normally be discarded called

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Speaker 1: stop wards, things like and and the um, because it's

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Speaker 1: looking for the big words in the title, the things

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Speaker 1: that are are unique and those words, those stop wards

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Speaker 1: are so common that Google it's meaningless to do a

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Speaker 1: search for them. Yes, you can do a search for

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Speaker 1: the UM, but Google just says everything. But if you

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Speaker 1: will allow me to to bore everyone but probably the

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Speaker 1: educators and library geeks among you, since I just got

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Speaker 1: my degree and I want to use it for something. UM.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about two things here called precision and recall Um,

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Speaker 1: these things are inversely proportional. So the more precise your

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Speaker 1: search results are, the let the fewer of them you're

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Speaker 1: going to get, and vice versa, or increases your recall.

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Speaker 1: So you're going to get lots and lots and lots

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Speaker 1: of stuff, but you're not going to have very precise results.

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Speaker 1: If you want precision, you need to narrow it down, um,

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Speaker 1: using and and and you know to some degree not

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Speaker 1: or yeah, um wait not yes, okay, UM, So just

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Speaker 1: keep in mind what you're trying to do. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people when they are looking

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Speaker 1: for information kind of like poking around, you know, the

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Speaker 1: serendipity search, What am I gonna find? Want to do this?

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Speaker 1: But if you're in a hurry, boolean operators can really

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Speaker 1: be your friend. Yeah. And as as I was saying

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Speaker 1: earlier about advanced search options, these usually if you if

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Speaker 1: you choose the advanced search option on a on a

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Speaker 1: search engine, and I'm going to stick with Google because

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Speaker 1: that's just well, it's a popular one. It's easy to

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Speaker 1: talk about. Um. It usually opens up a a a

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Speaker 1: new screen with additional options for search. So it'll have

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Speaker 1: one field where you can type in all the keywords

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Speaker 1: that you want that you that should appear in the

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Speaker 1: search result, and may have a separate field for any

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Speaker 1: keywords that you do not want to be in your

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Speaker 1: search result. So that would be the not feature. The

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Speaker 1: first one was the end. The other one, or actually

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Speaker 1: I guess the first one that's the first one is

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Speaker 1: the end because all of them do appear. They also

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Speaker 1: have once where you can say this or that you

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Speaker 1: know anything that has this or that should come back

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Speaker 1: to me. Um. So it incorporates the boolean logic in

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Speaker 1: actual little fields that you fill out, so you don't

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Speaker 1: have to remember the operators or or type them in

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Speaker 1: or anything, because you just type this, You type the

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Speaker 1: right keywords in the right fields, and it does it

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Speaker 1: for you. But it also gives you other options. Uh.

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Speaker 1: For example, you can search for exact phrasing, which you

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Speaker 1: can actually do in a regular search engine. You just

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Speaker 1: have to know to put it into quotation marks. Yes,

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Speaker 1: like anything within quotation marks, the search engine interprets that

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Speaker 1: as look for this specific sequence of words. So nuclear radiation,

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Speaker 1: for example, if you put that within quotation marks, it

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Speaker 1: would look for search results that use the phrase nuclear radiation,

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Speaker 1: which theoretically would get you closer to the results you need,

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Speaker 1: because you know you don't want articles just on radiation

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Speaker 1: in general, because not all radiation is nuclear, So you know,

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Speaker 1: this would help you narrow that search. Again, it's another

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Speaker 1: way of narrowing. But it can also do things like

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Speaker 1: Google's will allow you to search for specific file types.

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Speaker 1: So if you're looking for like you know that you

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Speaker 1: saw an article online once and it was in PDF

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Speaker 1: format but you can't quite remember, you know, you can

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Speaker 1: narrow your search that way and say just PDFs and

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Speaker 1: Google will look for just pds online. Um, that's just

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Speaker 1: one example. Obviously, Uh, it allows you to search within

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Speaker 1: a domain. You can also do this in the general

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Speaker 1: search bar if you know the right trick, which is

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Speaker 1: really just typing site s I T E. Colon, then

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Speaker 1: the address of the or the domain of the site

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Speaker 1: that you're searching, and then whatever your search terms are

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Speaker 1: that will do perform a Google search within a specific domain.

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Speaker 1: So let's say that you happen to know that the

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Speaker 1: information that you're looking for was in an article that

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Speaker 1: appeared on the register, you could you could use the

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Speaker 1: that to specify the search so that way it doesn't

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Speaker 1: look anywhere else for this information, you're not going to

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Speaker 1: get any irrelevant results from other sites. Uh. It can

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Speaker 1: definitely be a time saver. It's really helped me out

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Speaker 1: many many times. You can even do that on on

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Speaker 1: parts of the site if you happen to know if

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Speaker 1: it's if it's divided. For example, if you were looking

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Speaker 1: on how stuff works dot com for um, just to

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Speaker 1: stick with name recognition, if we have a number of

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Speaker 1: articles on Google um, and most of those are in

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Speaker 1: the computer channel, so as computer dot how stuff works

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Speaker 1: But let's say you were interested in finding a video,

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Speaker 1: you could do site colon videos dot how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com and see and then put a space in

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Speaker 1: there in type Google and if you it should returns

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Speaker 1: just that the results from that video channel. And of

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Speaker 1: course it's going to depend on the information architecture of

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Speaker 1: the site and whether or not that's possible. But for example,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's why I picked how stuff Works dot

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Speaker 1: com because I know it works with our site and

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Speaker 1: it's easier to find articles if you happen to now um.

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Speaker 1: But it also sort of depends on how well you

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Speaker 1: know this site that you're searching. Yeah, and and the

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Speaker 1: advanced search also allows you to do other things like

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Speaker 1: you can search within a range of dates, so you

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Speaker 1: can look for information that was that you know was

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Speaker 1: uploaded at a specific time. Um. If you know something

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Speaker 1: like maybe it's an article that appeared last spring, then

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Speaker 1: you can put in a range of dates. Again, you're

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Speaker 1: excluding anything that falls outside that range. You don't have

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Speaker 1: to worry about sorting through other stuff. Um. You can

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Speaker 1: even search for results based on the usage rights. Now, granted,

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Speaker 1: this is going to depend mainly upon the metadata that

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Speaker 1: is in the the web page. This is something that

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Speaker 1: the administrator of that web page has to include so

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Speaker 1: that Google can can identify it. Because Google is not

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Speaker 1: quite smart enough yet to know the usage rights of

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Speaker 1: every single web page it's out there. Um, because in

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Speaker 1: some cases it may not even be explicitly stated. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Then you know, you can even uh specify where on

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Speaker 1: the web page the keywords should appear, which allows you

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Speaker 1: to search. Let's say that you want to search for

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Speaker 1: articles that are about a specific topic, but you don't

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Speaker 1: want to get back articles that just kind of have

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Speaker 1: a little aside about that topic. You can actually have

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Speaker 1: it so that it's only the pages that have the

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Speaker 1: keywords within the page title, which theoretically should get you

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Speaker 1: results that are more relevant to your search. So really,

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Speaker 1: advanced search is a huge boon. I mean that's that alone.

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Speaker 1: For we even get into anything more specific. Will really

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Speaker 1: help help you narrow down your searches so that you

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Speaker 1: can get at relevant information quickly. Now, again, Google does

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Speaker 1: a pretty good job at at having the relevant search

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Speaker 1: most relevant things to your keywords at any rate appear

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Speaker 1: at the top of the list, so you normally don't

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Speaker 1: have to dig down too far. Um. It's not always

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Speaker 1: the case, but they do a pretty good job of it. Yes,

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Speaker 1: excuse me, well, Chris got all choked up. Yes I did.

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Speaker 1: It's just you know, they talk about the search topics. Um.

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Speaker 1: Actually that's a good point, Jonathan, because um, I was

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Speaker 1: just going to mention that, Uh, you might look at

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Speaker 1: if you've ever played around, especially right after Being came

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Speaker 1: out Microsoft launch Being, people were playing around with it

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Speaker 1: to see how the results compared to Google. And you

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Speaker 1: can put in the same topic on a Being search

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Speaker 1: and a a Google search, and they're going to turn

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Speaker 1: up probably some of the same results on the first page,

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Speaker 1: but not necessarily all of them. They might be ranked differently. UM.

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Speaker 1: If you are a fan of one or the other,

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Speaker 1: you might go, well, mind, my favorite is the best.

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Speaker 1: Well maybe not necessarily. It sort of depends on the topic.

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Speaker 1: And one way to to sort of get everybody together

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Speaker 1: um is to use a meta search engine, something like

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Speaker 1: dogpile or um or surf wax for example surf wax

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Speaker 1: dot com, and both of these use search multiple search

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Speaker 1: engines at the same time, so it will look for

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Speaker 1: the topic you request on Google and bing and Yahoo

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Speaker 1: and ask dot com and possibly even Excite and Lycos

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Speaker 1: and some of the others that have been around for

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Speaker 1: a long time that use different methods to rank pages.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of people really really like the meta

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Speaker 1: search engines. I know that that some of the people

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Speaker 1: here at how stuff works dot com are are really

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Speaker 1: fond of of a couple of them because they're not

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Speaker 1: h they give you sort of a more in depth

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Speaker 1: look at how the different sites rank the articles. And

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Speaker 1: it's possible that use in different search engine might give

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Speaker 1: you better results for any particular topic. Right, so you

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Speaker 1: might use Google for one search and being for a

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Speaker 1: different search, or asked dot com for a different search,

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Speaker 1: just depending on the results. Because one you may be

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Speaker 1: looking for something particular that you know, one search engine

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Speaker 1: turns up and the other does not, especially when you

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Speaker 1: consider that the algorithms these different search engines use can

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Speaker 1: UH that can determine what results you get on one

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Speaker 1: day to the next. You can do the exact same

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Speaker 1: Google search or search on Being or any other real

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Speaker 1: search engine that relies upon an algorithm, you can do

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Speaker 1: with that search on various dates and get completely different

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Speaker 1: results based upon how those pages rank UH due to

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Speaker 1: the algorithm. So now some are going to change less

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Speaker 1: frequently than others. Some you may do the search and

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Speaker 1: then it will look the exact same way six months

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Speaker 1: from now, but others, like you know, Google definitely does

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Speaker 1: change over time. If you do the same search result

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Speaker 1: or same search I'm sorry key words, UM, you'll get

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Speaker 1: different results sometimes from one day to the next, sometimes

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Speaker 1: one morning to one afternoon. UM. It kind of depends

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Speaker 1: upon the topic and whether or not, especially since Google

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Speaker 1: will search across multiple UH features, like there's Google News

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Speaker 1: where you'll get the latest articles. That's obviously going to

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Speaker 1: change pretty rapidly compared to the more static web pages

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Speaker 1: that are about a general topic. Right, I mean a

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Speaker 1: lot of people noticed a couple of months ago when

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Speaker 1: Google will change the search results page because down the

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Speaker 1: left side of the bar, now you've got you know, everything, news, images, books, blog,

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Speaker 1: shopping and all those other topics. And people either loved

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Speaker 1: it or hated it. Um. I'm one of the people

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Speaker 1: who happens to like it actually, But I mean that's

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Speaker 1: that's a different Basically, they're grouping, they're sort of breaking

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Speaker 1: it down for you into commonly searched topics like images.

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Speaker 1: You can think of like the general search as pot pourri.

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Speaker 1: It's everything, but you can break it down into smaller

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Speaker 1: groups U. And another one that would might be of

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Speaker 1: particular help to students is Google scholar, which allows you

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Speaker 1: to search scholarly articles, journals. UM. It allows you to

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Speaker 1: look at patents, UH, and even legal opinions if you

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Speaker 1: if you want to enable that, you can, and you

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Speaker 1: can choose which options to enable and which ones to

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Speaker 1: leave out. So if you don't want any results that

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Speaker 1: have to do with patents, you can click a little

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Speaker 1: checkbox and it will leave those results out. And UH,

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Speaker 1: that can definitely help you find specific scholarly articles about subjects. Now,

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Speaker 1: I should hasten to add that does not necessarily mean

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Speaker 1: that you'll be able to go to a link and

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Speaker 1: read the article in full. Many of these journals are

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Speaker 1: online have an online journal where you have to have

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Speaker 1: a subscription in order to access that journal. So it

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Speaker 1: maybe that you'll be able to read an excerpt, but

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Speaker 1: you won't get the full article. In order to do that,

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Speaker 1: you'll need some other tool. A lot of schools, UM

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Speaker 1: and a lot of library systems have a database or

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Speaker 1: a search engine that's similar in style to Google, but

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Speaker 1: specifically for this kind of thing, where you do get

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Speaker 1: access to the full articles. UM. Depending on who designed

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Speaker 1: that system, it may or may not be as user

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Speaker 1: friendly as your as your general search engine, but you

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Speaker 1: may need access to something like that. Now, a lot

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Speaker 1: of school systems do have this UH, so it's good

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Speaker 1: to to find out if yours does, UM and and

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Speaker 1: make use of it. We mentioned in a previous podcast

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Speaker 1: about education and technology. Then in Georgia we have a

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Speaker 1: system called Galileo, and in Galileo we can search these

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Speaker 1: scholarly articles and get access to the full article without

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Speaker 1: having a specific um uh subscription to that particular publication.

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Speaker 1: UM that that's really helpful now, granted, even then you're

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Speaker 1: going to be limited by whatever range of journals that

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Speaker 1: particular service has access to. It's not necessarily going to

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Speaker 1: have access to every single journal that is out there,

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Speaker 1: but that that can sometimes pick up the slack that

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Speaker 1: the Google will leave, because Google has no control over

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Speaker 1: what the actual content is on these pages, and in

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Speaker 1: some cases, like I said, it may just be an

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Speaker 1: excerpt which can give you some helpful like guidance, but

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Speaker 1: it's not going to give you the information you necessarily

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Speaker 1: need for an academic paper. There are a couple of

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Speaker 1: things that I think we should address to now that

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Speaker 1: we're getting into the more mature part of our podcast.

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Speaker 1: So let's get that very web music in here. No no, no, wait,

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Speaker 1: not that I was short of you using that as

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Speaker 1: a euphemism as saying, we're slowly running out of time

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Speaker 1: and probably should address some other things. Not alright, go Um.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that I think we should address

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Speaker 1: is quality of resources. Yes, actually, one of the things

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Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about was primary versus secondary. Yes. Yes,

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Speaker 1: what I was basically getting into was, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: as we have mentioned many many times in the podcast,

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Speaker 1: especially during the education series, we do have a lot

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Speaker 1: of listeners who are still in school, And I want

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Speaker 1: to stress to all of you that not everything you

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Speaker 1: read on the internet is accurate or yes, you have

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Speaker 1: to keep in mind where the information is coming from,

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Speaker 1: who it's coming from, and whether or not things may

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Speaker 1: have been biased. For example, maybe you're reading something that

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Speaker 1: from a source that you do trust pretty well, and

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Speaker 1: they say that a study financed by you know, the

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Speaker 1: ACME Soup Corporation says that soup is beneficial to your eyesight,

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Speaker 1: and you're going, okay, well, that's great. Apparently soup is

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Speaker 1: beneficial to your eyesight. But and then you think about it.

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Speaker 1: Wait a minute, the people funding the study have a soupy.

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Speaker 1: They see a direct benefit from the increase of super

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Speaker 1: consumption exactly. So I mean, it may even be from

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Speaker 1: a reasonably trusted resource, and maybe it came from a

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Speaker 1: press release from the company, and perhaps it's true, but

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Speaker 1: they do have a season for people to spread the

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Speaker 1: good news about soup. Now, there does come a point

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Speaker 1: where you eventually have to take that leap and and

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Speaker 1: say that whoever it is that did that provide this

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Speaker 1: information did so in good faith and without bias, Because

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Speaker 1: ultimately all these when we think of scientific research and

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Speaker 1: or research in general. Really, the money to fund that

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Speaker 1: research has to come from somewhere. Sure, and if you

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Speaker 1: play the money tracing game to to ludicrous levels, it's

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Speaker 1: going to seem like nothing out there is reliable. But

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Speaker 1: there are some cases where this is far more obvious

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Speaker 1: than others, where you're saying, Okay, well, this this particular

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Speaker 1: study is suspect because it's directly funded by this company

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Speaker 1: that has a vested interest, and the results of the

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Speaker 1: study seem to favor that company. That would be enough

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Speaker 1: to maybe give you pause to say, maybe I need

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Speaker 1: to find another study, not necessarily say that this one's

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Speaker 1: wrong out of hand, but at least find some other

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Speaker 1: um research out there that either corroborates or refutes the

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Speaker 1: evidence of that particular study before just leaping on and

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Speaker 1: saying Okay, this is what I'm going to use as

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Speaker 1: a source on my paper. Yeah. Um, but I was

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Speaker 1: going to. I did mention primary versus secondary sources. Some

432
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:20,919
Speaker 1: of you may not really know what that means. Uh.

433
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 1: We talked about a little bit in our our Wikis

434
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: episode because we talked about how Wikipedia is not supposed

435
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: to be used as a primary source. Primary source is Essentially,

436
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 1: it's the originator of any particular data. It's the original

437
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 1: source of some form of information. So a primary source

438
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,919
Speaker 1: could include a scientific report that summarizes a specific experiment.

439
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:45,439
Speaker 1: That would be a good primary source. So that's a

440
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 1: direct communication from the people who conducted the study to

441
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: the people who are interested in reading about it. Now,

442
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 1: a secondary source is kind of an intermediary. That's that's

443
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 1: a source that's reporting or relaying that information, but it

444
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: is not uh, directly responsible for creating that information. So, uh,

445
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: Scientific American could be a good example here. Uh, they

446
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:14,360
Speaker 1: do some excellent articles, but it's reporting. You know, most

447
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,640
Speaker 1: the articles in Scientific American would be something where it's

448
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 1: reporting on a study and it's trying to report the

449
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 1: results in a way that is um easily understandable by

450
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: the readership of Scientific American. So it's still a secondary

451
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: source if you want, if you want to cite a

452
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: primary source, you need to actually go to the study

453
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 1: that's mentioned in the secondary source and read it yourself.

454
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: Because whether we mean to or not, we have to

455
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,960
Speaker 1: filter information through our own uh you know, our own experiences,

456
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:51,679
Speaker 1: in our own understanding, right, and sometimes we're wrong because

457
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:55,920
Speaker 1: humans often are and so it's possible that a secondary source,

458
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: even though they're trying to report on a primary source accurately,

459
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: it could be inaccurate. You just in the sense of

460
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 1: trying to summarize a report, you could end up being inaccurate. Yes,

461
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 1: And this happens all the time without bias. Now it

462
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 1: can happen with bias too, but it it happens innocently

463
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: all the time because it is really hard sometimes to

464
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: summarize what a specific, uh scientific study is all about

465
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 1: in a thousand words in a way that's understandable to

466
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 1: your audience. So it's very important to try and go

467
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: back to primary sources so that you can see what

468
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: was actually said about the study. And here's something else

469
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:42,679
Speaker 1: I think it now would be a good time to

470
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: bring it up, because we're running out of time. Um,

471
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,639
Speaker 1: And that is, don't copy and paste stuff that you

472
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,120
Speaker 1: read on the internet or anywhere else for that matter.

473
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 1: Plagiarism is bad. Plagiarism is bad. That's called plagiarism, as

474
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:57,880
Speaker 1: you may have guessed. And uh, that's the thing. If

475
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 1: you find some useful information in a journal, say a

476
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 1: peer of your journal science, um, you want to use

477
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: that in your your report well, that's great, you can,

478
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: but you need to give credit where credit is due.

479
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:13,640
Speaker 1: Copying somebody else's words verbatim, even a couple of them,

480
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: that's plagiarism. And you can even plagiarize yourself if you

481
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: have written a paper and you go, oh, man, I

482
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: did this paper last year and I totally this paragraph

483
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,120
Speaker 1: would be perfect for this new paper. Now, that's plagiarizing yourself.

484
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 1: It has to be original. You can use it, but

485
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: give credit to the person who who wrote it. And

486
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 1: that's what the value the primary source to write. And

487
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: the flip side of that coin is that, uh, you can't.

488
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:42,439
Speaker 1: In most academic papers, you can't necessarily you can't just

489
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,480
Speaker 1: say that this is common understanding. Like any particular piece

490
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 1: of information, UM, you have to be able to back

491
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: up that information by providing a source that that that

492
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: gives you the foundation to make that statement. This doesn't

493
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,400
Speaker 1: mean that you can't draw your own conclusion is from

494
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,440
Speaker 1: that information, but you can't just take something for granted

495
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: and say, uh, this is true. You know, you have

496
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: to be able to back that up. This is why

497
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: if you go to a site like Wikipedia, UM, you'll

498
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: see often in these articles you'll see something like citation needed.

499
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 1: It's because it Wikipedia is very focused on trying to

500
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: present the best information possible. But that's you know, it's

501
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:25,640
Speaker 1: it's a work in progress and it always will be

502
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: just based upon the nature of that tool, and citation

503
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,679
Speaker 1: needed just means that there needs to be a foundation

504
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,639
Speaker 1: to support the statement that was made in that article.

505
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: And without a foundation, you can't really make that statement

506
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: because it could not it might not be true, you say,

507
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: silent greenest people, but we need proof. Yeah, you know,

508
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 1: it varies from person to person anyway. So uh, and

509
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: we did say this in another podcast about Wikipedia and

510
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: using Wikipedia as a worse and why a lot of

511
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 1: teachers frown on that, And again, part of that is

512
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 1: because it's all secondary. Wikipedia by its nature says it

513
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 1: cannot be used as a primary source. So if you

514
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: conduct a scientific study, you can't use Wikipedia to publish

515
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: your findings. Um, that's not what it's for. So Wikipedia

516
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: is not necessarily a bad tool. It can definitely give

517
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: you an understanding of a subject. But the best thing

518
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: you can do is, once you get that understanding, dive

519
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,959
Speaker 1: down and find those primary sources. Because Wikipedia is really

520
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: just it's just a tool to get you started. Yeah,

521
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: and I mean a lot of people thought we were

522
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: are picking on Wikipedia, but it's the idea behind it

523
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: is great, you know, being able to to contribute to

524
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: scholarly research and and and getting an idea for what's

525
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: going on with a particular topic. But the fact of

526
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: the matter is, you know, things change over time. People

527
00:29:57,880 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: can go in and mess with it just because they

528
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: want to. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

529
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: And a lot of people have done serious work on

530
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: trying to improve Wikipedia and make it more of a

531
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: primary type resource. But in the end, you really need

532
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: to go back and look at the sources to see

533
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: where they got the information from, and you'll get an

534
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: idea of how accurate you can really be with it. Yeah,

535
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: just remember that, I mean, we talked a lot about

536
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: this in terms of scientific studies because that's a pretty

537
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: simple um example. But just remember that there are such

538
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: things as bad studies out there too. People get people

539
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: have their studies retracted. I've heard several on the you know,

540
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 1: there have been a few high profile, very famous one

541
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: recently that I was very very happy about getting retracted

542
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: out of the British School of our British Journal of Medicine. Yes,

543
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: so that was a peer of you journal, and somebody

544
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: might have written a paper based on that because it is,

545
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: you know, a peer. By the way, peer of you

546
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: means that other doctors in this case had looked at

547
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: the research and said, okay, well this article seems sound.

548
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. Well, experts have looked at it. Hey,

549
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: it should be right right, right, and then occasionally they say, whoops, no,

550
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: we were wrong, and this happened. That's what happened in

551
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: this case. And that can happen in any kind of

552
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:14,160
Speaker 1: scientific journals, just medical. Um. So critical thinking is necessary

553
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 1: to do accurate research on the internet. Yeah, and it

554
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: sounds like it's a lot of else. It sounds like

555
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: it's a lot of work. But the nice thing about

556
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: this is even though every individual paper that I ever

557
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: had to write, I felt like, oh God, I can't

558
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: believe I have to write another one of these. But

559
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: ultimately it taught me to think and it taught me

560
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: to really be critical when I was looking at information.

561
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: And that's a skill you can use everywhere, absolutely, and

562
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 1: it makes you look good if you can do this,

563
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: and it's not just in your academic career. Guys and

564
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: and ladies as well. I got chastise in real life

565
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: for using the term guys in a non gender specific form.

566
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: It happens. Yeah, But at any rate, this is a

567
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: skill you can use everywhere, like even something as simple

568
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:00,120
Speaker 1: as taking your car and to get worked on that.

569
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: Those critical thinking skills could be the difference between you

570
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: getting you know, a a fifty dollar fix on something

571
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: and a thousand dollar job that didn't need to be done. Um.

572
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:14,719
Speaker 1: You know it just it really does help you separate

573
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: what is good information from what is bad. And really

574
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: we use that all the time. And uh, so that

575
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: was a really good discussion. I think I hope that

576
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: Anne Marie liked that discussion about research. I hope that

577
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: is useful to um. I believe that Marie is a teacher,

578
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: so I hope that's useful to your students. And I

579
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: hope that that pleases you and fellow teachers. Uh. The

580
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: internet is a wonderful resource. It is also full of

581
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: stuff that is not as wonderful. So just use that

582
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: critical thinking, use these tips that we gave you, and uh,

583
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: and and that that will put you on a good

584
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: start to getting some really strong information. So hopefully that's

585
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 1: a good help. If you have any suggestions for future topics,

586
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: whether it's a ucation and technology or just technology in general,

587
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: you can write us. Our email address is tech stuff

588
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com and Chris and I

589
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: will talk to you again really soon if you're a

590
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: tech stuff and be sure to check us out on

591
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:21,239
Speaker 1: Twitter tech Stuff hs ws R handle, and you can

592
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: also find us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash

593
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: tech stuff h s W. For more on this and

594
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, does how stuff Works dot com,

595
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: and be sure to check out the new tech stuff

596
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 1: blog now on the how Stuff Works homepage, brought to

597
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,

598
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: are you