LANG 3070 - English Communication for Humanities and Social Science Studies II: Seach Techniques

When you do research, you will find things cited in papers & books you read.  You can then look those up and read them.

Example: I read a chapter in this e-book 

Ho, B.C. and Li. Q. (2013). Rural Chinese Women's Political Participation. In Z. Hao and S. Chen (Eds), Social Issues in China : Gender, Ethnicity, Labor, and the Environment (pp. 23-44.). Dordrecht, Netherlands, Springer. Retrieved from: http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-2224-2

1. You decide to follow-up on the in-text citation as written in the article " In Tong's studies (2003) Chinese men fare better....".   So you go to the full reference below.

2. You then search for the article in PrimoCentral of PowerSearch - very generally - using the title

Results - 75,000, but the one you want is the top (thank goodness!). Then you read it. This may lead you  to more citations and useful resources.

A more efficient search would use advanced search with author = Tong + title= gender gap political china

The "classic method" allows you to search backwards.

Now modern tools also allow you to search forwards! You can learn more about Citation chaining in the Citation Chaining Guide & by watching the videos below

Citation chaining helps you quickly find related articles through citations. It is an essential technique to support your literature review process.

You can do backward and forward searching based on an article in hand.

Most databases do not support "natural language" searching. But, if you learn some |smart search" techniques, you will be able to target your searching better.. The image below is linked to several short videos to help you learn new and different search techniques.

Most databases have them!  

Good place for easy field searching

Example in PowerSearch

Example in Proquest

Example in Social Science Citation Index

Notice how of the fields you can search relate to the information we use to make a citation? That's called "meta-data"

ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education Quick Start Guide (2023, from UNESCO), p. 6

A common problem with many generative AI text tools is that they generate nonsense, especially made-up citations (references).

So, if you are using texts that you created using ChatGPT or other AI tools, use your eyes and your brain to check the work. Evaluate the information provided, just like anything you plan to use academically. More info on how to evaluate below:

• https://libguides.hkust.edu.hk/lang1403/evaluate

1. Cross-check what it says & do "lateral reading"

• Check against your own knowledge
• Check against Wikipedia or Britannica
• See if other reliable sources state the same thing
• This is not new with generative AI, it's always been good scholarly practice

To learn more about lateral reading,  watch:

• Lateral Reading (3 min 33 sec) by the University of Louisville Library
• Check Yourself with Lateral Reading video (14 min) / by John Green (part of the Crash Course series)

2. Confirm that any references it provides are real

• Check them against PowerSearch, Google Scholar, etc.

3. If the references (citations) are real, check that they support the claim

• This is *NOT* a new issue with AI tools, it's always been important to do so.
• This is proper scholarly practice when working with sources both in print and online.

4. If you use ChatGPT or other AI tools in your work, you need to acknowledge it.

• Go to the page: https://libguides.hkust.edu.hk/ai-literacy/citing-acknowledging

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Some of this content was based on the work of Amy Scheelke of Salt Lake Community College, her LibGuide: https://libguides.slcc.edu/ChatGPT/InformationLiteracy