Acceptable References -- A Caution

Last modified by Steve Custer 28 August 2003

Introduction

You have been assigned a research paper of professional quality. Professional research papers depend upon the primary scientific literature rather than the secondary and popular literature. The reason is that the secondary and popular literature often contain only the conclusions. Little data is presented in the popular and secondary literature to support the conclusions. The writing in this course should depend on data from the primary journal literature. For this reason, you should not use the Reader's Guide, Academic Universe or General Reference Center as a citation source. If you find a good article in a secondary source, look up the primary source they used to write the article.   Your bibliographies should NOT cite information from the secondary literature.  Go to the primary literature.  When you complete this course, you should  be able to confidently use the primary literature.  This exercise helps prepare you to make better decisions regarding which of the search results you achieve in the next few weeks are worthy of pursuit.

Examples of popular and secondary literature you should NOT use.

Not abstracts from meeting presentations.

You will encounter many search results which show abstracts from meetings.  These rarely provide data.  You might know what the conclusions are, but do not know what data supports those conclusions or what methodology was used to collect the data except in a general way.  Rarely, there is solid important data in these abstracts.  If you stumble into such data use of that data is acceptable, but you will find that abstracts from meetings are rarely in the library and rarely provide enough help to warrant your valuable time to go into the stacks to try to find them.

Not your boss's  library or the library of your favorite professor.

Do not depend on your boss's library.   Remember, when you go to work, your boss's library will not have what you are looking for because your boss asked you to find the material.  This paper and future scientific papers you write at MSU are  your opportunity to learn how to find what you or your employer need to know.   Consulting reports and grant reports can also be problematic and should be used sparingly if at all.  Personal communication  is also not a good source of information for the paper you are writing this semester and is generally rare (but does exist) in the literature as well.  Personal communication, consulting reports and environmental impact statements are not acceptable  for this paper.  This paper should be based dominantly on peer-reviewed journals.

Not Interlibrary Loan

Do NOT depend on interlibrary loan.  This is your library research project and should be based on journals in the MSU Library.  Interlibrary loan is too slow for a one semester paper.  Interlibary loan can work well if you have more time.

 Examples of primary literature you should use.

All these journals are primary, peer reviewed journals and there are many others like these in the MSU library that relate to geography and/or geology.
 

Materials on the Internet

Materials on the Internet may be acceptable.  Some are poor and some are good.  Even with the growing number of good ones, do NOT stop with the internet.  Your references cited section should be dominated by journal citations not internet citations.
 
Discussion
What are some criteria for recognizing good internet materials?
What are the problems with Internet materials?

A word of Caution

You are strongly encouraged to focus on journal articles in our library.  There are some things that many libraries do not have.  The electronic databases list abstracts for meetings, theses, and papers from symposia as well as journal articles.    Our library often does not receive symposium proceedings, the abstracts rarely contain much data to support statements, and   theses will not be in our library unless they were written by an MSU student.  The library does have an interlibrary loan service, but you commonly will not receive  information via interlibrary loan in time to read and synthesize the data into your paper. Students who depend on interlibrary loan often come in toward the end of the semester and say, " I was waiting on this great article so I could start writing and it was not what I expected.  What do I do now?"  or "The data for my paper is in an article from interlibrary loan.  The paper has not yet come in, can I turn in my paper late?"  The answer to these questions is, "No you may not turn the paper late, I warned you about this problem".  If all the papers you are finding are in symposia and theses, the topic is probably too esoteric to form a good paper for this course.  Use articles from journals the Renne Library holds.   The holdings we have are adequate for your research and will serve you well in geography, geology, geohydrology, vertebrate paleontology and snow science if you use them effectively.  As always, when you are unsure how to proceed, ask a librarian or your professor. Please feel free to ask questions during the seminars.
 

Reading

Go back to the primary assignment.  What are the requirements regarding references for the course assignment?

Assignment

Bring your proposed topic typed on a sheet of paper with your name on it.
Do you plan to use the paper for this course in another course?
        If so , say so on the sheet AND attach a copy of the assignment.
        If not, say so on your typed sheet.
Papers handed to the instructor late or in handwriting will receive a zero.  Your work on the paper topic should take place before you come to class and continue in class.

Time Commitment

2 hours thinking about your topic.
1 hour in class.

Grading

Attendance 1%; Typed Paper Topic 1%
 

Discussion Questions

Break into groups of 5
  1. Discuss the list of secondary literature above.  What is the problem with such sources?  Report back one example to the class.
      2. a.  What problems and advantages are there with symposium proceedings? (Compare to peer reviewed journals).
      b. What problems and advantages are there with books?  (Compare to peer reviewed journals.)
  2. Discuss consulting reports, grant reports, environmental impact statements, and personal communication.  What is the problem with such sources?  Report back on one example to the class.
  3. Discuss what problems there are with internet papers?  In groups, discuss examples of good internet papers and bad internet papers.  How do you tell the difference between good and bad?