SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION AS A CONVERSATION

Scholarly communication, defined by the Association of College & Research Libraries (2020), is

the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use. The system includes both formal means of communication, such as publication in peer-reviewed journals, and informal channels, such as electronic listservs. (What is Scholarly Communication? section)

It is also a conversation between the creators of this information, who have a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, and use various methods to share their ideas. These individuals write about, present, publish, and post their ideas with the intent that others will use the information to push the conversation to the next level, and even start a new discourse. For example, there are many articles, websites, and books on climate change and pollution. There is also literature on how the auto industry is responding to changing emission standards, including the technology in electric vehicles. A researcher watching these conversations unfold might begin a new conversation connecting the two: a discussion of technology’s potential role in reducing pollution — this may include improved electric cars or genetically modified plants that absorb more CO2.

This communication exists in various resource formats — as discussed in Chapter 3 — and all have value and contribute to scholarly communication. A single scholarly work may not represent the only perspective, or the majority perspective on an issue. Consider that scholarship on a topic will grow and evolve; new information will be discovered that may support or contradict previous knowledge. This new information will be discussed and debated, along with new interpretations and theories that develop over time. Good scholars will work to document previous work on the topic that informs their studies. College students are expected to follow this practice as well, by citing the work they use in research papers and projects, and positioning their ideas within the larger conversation about this topic.

A review of the literature is the process of positioning one’s ideas within the larger conversation on a topic. Sometimes a literature review can stand alone or be a part of a larger research project. Its purpose is to investigate the context of the topic being researched, to better place one’s own research within the larger conversation, and to support one’s conclusions. This involves exploring existing research and knowledge on the topic, identifying gaps in the knowledge that require further research to contribute new information to the conversation.

One way to think of this conversation is as a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece depends on the ones around it for context or meaning. If you look at one piece alone, the picture may not make sense or seem unimportant. Even if the image does make sense alone — a leaf, hot air balloon, or an eye — it may still hint at its surroundings. Only when you fit all the pieces together do you see the big picture, and understand the whole.

For example, this piece of a picture is clear enough. It’s a streetlamp-style light with some leaves. This could be a piece of a conversation about technology’s contribution to light pollution, for example. Sure, it stands alone, but it starts to make real sense when you see the whole picture all at once — now we know the context for our piece (see below):

In this case, the larger picture shows part of Weber State University’s Ogden campus. The larger conversation here — WSU — includes many smaller pieces contributing to the whole. In addition to the lamp-post, other pieces of this conversation could include the clock tower and WSU’s history, the landscaping and WSU’s carbon-footprint reduction plan, WSU’s Tracy Hall Science Center, or WSU’s position in the region.

However, where do you go to learn about the current scholarly conversation on a topic and get the big picture? When searching for information, where you look will depend partly on when it happened:

A news crew can film something happening live, send it back to the station, edit it, and broadcast it on the news in just a few hours. People can take pictures with cell phones and post them immediately on social media. For significant events, newspapers and magazines can arrange to cover the event in the next issue that will appear, usually within days.

Coverage of the event in scholarly journals will take longer because those sources are published less frequently. Coverage in these sources is typically more in-depth, and the time to study and research takes longer. These sources are often peer-reviewed, which adds even more time to the process.

Books and encyclopedias take even longer to write, edit, and publish. In general, the longer it takes for the source to appear, the more in-depth the coverage will be. Encyclopedias are probably the one exception; these typically provide general overviews and are meant only to introduce you to a topic.

The Web is unique because it can be edited and revised hourly, but may contain information from any point in time. Even if information was uploaded recently, it may be old information that reflects only what was known at the time of its creation. This is particularly true with social media. For example, sometimes news posts shared on Facebook re-circulate long after they were originally posted because people note the headline and get worked up, then repost it without checking the date or the facts. One must verify information on the Web with sources with an explicit creation date.

A SAMPLE SEARCH

If you have been assigned a research assignment about former President George H. W. Bush’s efforts to persuade the American public that the 1991 Gulf War was a worthwhile struggle, you might do some preliminary reading in the Encyclopedia Britannica and discover entries such as Iraq and the War of 1991, George Herbert Walker Bush, or Saddam Hussein. Additional background reading might be found by doing a simple Google search for (“Gulf War” OR “Iraq War 1991”) AND “public relations.”

Once familiar with the topic and what went on during that time, you might search one of the library databases, such as Academic OneFile, ProQuest Central, and JSTOR for full-text, peer-reviewed journal articles using a similar search statement. Or, you might search the library’s online catalog to find books on this topic using the search statement “Iraq War 1991” AND “mass media.” These sources will give you more in-depth coverage of the event. An academic video database like AVON might provide in-depth documentaries with information on the topic from multiple perspectives. For example, The Case Against Saddam Hussein documents a Dan Rather interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell, after he made a historic speech making the case against Saddam Hussein to an audience at the United Nations.

You could search YouTube for “Desert Storm” AND “Gulf War 1991” to see primary (first-hand) videos of events during that period. Or, you can search library newspapers from October 1990 to February 1991 for examples of new stories, ads, and editorials to determine the mood of US society at the time.

This provides a simple example of a few sources one might consult on a specific topic. All these sources come from different periods. They contain information from multiple perspectives at various points in the timeline of information production. Understanding how they all form a complete picture will give you a much broader perspective than relying on a single source, even if it is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal article. It is important to remember that there are lots of conversations happening and not everyone agrees. All the individual sources you find is just a piece of the larger conversation. No one source will represent the only — or even the majority — perspective on a topic. A single source only represents the research and view of one author. You can’t read everything on a topic, but it is good practice to look at multiple sources from various perspectives to get a better idea of the big picture.

SCIENCE = TRUTH?

Many equate scientific studies with truth. One of the hallmarks of high quality scientific research is the ability to replicate experiments. Dr. Brian Nosek at the University of Virginia led a project where researchers attempted to replicate one hundred psychology experiments published in three leading journals. The study showed that nearly two thirds of the results of the experiments could not be replicated (Open Science Collaboration, 2015). According to Nosek, “Our best methodologies to try to figure out truth mostly reveal to us that figuring out truth is really hard. And we’re going to get contradictions. One year, we’re going to learn that coffee is good for us. The next year, we’re going to learn that it’s bad for us. The next year, we’re going to learn we don’t know” (Vedantam, 2015, para. 7).

When an experiment cannot be replicated, does that mean it’s wrong? Nosek said it’s possible that both studies are right, and that the inability to reproduce a study may be “a sign of uncertainty, not a sign of untrustworthiness… a signal there’s something going on that we don’t understand” (Vedantam, 2015, para. 8).

Vedantam (2015) believes that many “look to science to provide us with answers and certainty when science really is in the business of producing questions and producing more uncertainty” (para. 15). He also talks about the equivalence between science and journalism:

(journalists) paint a picture of the world every day, whether that’s a war zone or financial markets. But we’re always doing it in the context of imperfect information. And especially when we’re covering things we don’t know much about – you know, a big breaking story, what we discover in the first few days is likely to get revised down the road. Now, you can throw up your hands and say, let’s not waste time reading or listening to the first draft of history. Let me just wait a month or a year for the whole picture to emerge. But I think most people would say the best information is still valuable, even if it’s going to get updated tomorrow. We need to think about scientific studies the same way. (para. 15)

Just like news stories develop over time, science also changes. Truth can change as new information is learned — such truths are all pieces of broader conversations, and conversations build with each voice that contributes its discoveries. Anyone who has been on a road trip with a kid will tell you how boring an unchanging conversation can be (Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?). It’s up to everyone to add what they can to scholarly conversations to keep them from stagnating and to keep progress — academic, scientific, technological, and artistic progress — moving, changing, and advancing.

FINDING IDEAS FOR TOPICS

Most of the time, you’ll be given a topic to write about. Other times, you’ll need to create your idea, which can be the most challenging part of the research process. You can find ideas for topics in a number of places; here is a list to help you get started:

• Are you worried that your topic is too broad? Talk to a subject librarian if you need help narrowing it down.
• Textbooks are exceptional for an overview of topics. If you are taking a course, look in your textbook for topic ideas or ask your professor.
• Reference books are good for identifying specific areas of a subject you might be interested in pursuing. Browse the reference area and look for encyclopedias or other sources that provide background various topics.
• Magazines and newspapers are good sources for exploring current events and issues.
• Journal articles are best for exploring more scholarly topics. Ask a librarian for recommendations.
• General or subject-specific article databases are great if you already have a topic in mind. ProQuest Central is a great resource for searching multiple databases at once if you aren’t sure where to start.
• There are several great databases for argumentative papers. CQ Researcher presents both sides of the story for controversial topics, Opposing Viewpoints in Context allows you to browse specific information formats (e.g., academic journals, editorials, statistics, and magazines) on controversial topics.
• Google can help you narrow down a topic if you already have a general idea of what you want to research.
• Wikipedia can also be a good place for some background information on a topic, as well as possible keywords, phrases, and search ideas. While Wikipedia should not be used as a cited source, sometimes you find additional sources, or find good ideas and discussion points for your paper there.
• Don’t forget about personal issues you are dealing with or things you are passionate about. This could be a pet, a hobby, or a problem you or someone you know is dealing with. Sometimes it is very personal, like being a single parent, or perhaps a disease a loved one deals with. Think about questions you can ask about these things. For example, how did this hobby become a thing? Who started it? Is there some psychological benefit to owning a pet? What makes people mistreat pets? Are single parents treated equally in the workplace? What is the current state of research on this disease? Use these simple questions as a starting point to develop a focused research question or thesis statement that will work for the scope of the project you will be working on.

SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

Once you decide on an idea, it is important to consider the scope of the assignment or project you will be working on. The length of a paper is important to consider because that will indicate how many sources will be needed — and how broad or focused the topic should be. For example, are you working on a 4-page paper that discusses personal views on a particular topic, or are you working on a 30-page scholarly literature review? Are you required to find a minimum of two sources of any kind, or do you need to find a minimum of 15 peer-reviewed articles on the topic? If your topic is too narrow, you won’t be able to locate the required number of sources or have enough information to fill out the length requirement for the paper.

If you need to use specific types (e.g., scholarly) or formats (e.g., books) of sources, you can’t go with just any topic. For example, you may be unable to locate 15 peer-reviewed articles on hip-hop music. However, if you modify the topic to focus on the role of social class in hip-hop music, you will be able to locate academic journal articles or books. If you are required to use a minimum of two books for your paper, you won’t be able to find any on a topic that is too current, such as a presidential election that happened a month ago. However, if you revise your focus to a related issue, such as campaign financing or the merits of the electoral college, you’ll be able to locate books. The scope of your assignment or project will impact the types and formats of information you’ll be able to find, as well as how broad or narrow your topic will need to be. These are important to consider before you begin looking for information. But remember, it’s okay to go back and revise your topic if you are having a hard time finding sources — it’s all part of the process. Just be sure to clear it with your professor.

FOCUSING THE TOPIC & FORMULATING A RESEARCH QUESTION OR THESIS STATEMENT

Most college-level research papers have either a research question or a thesis statement. Both identify the issue you will be writing about; one is phrased as a question, the other as a statement. Both should focus on working with the scope of your project or assignment. There are many ways to focus a topic idea. You can focus your topic by geography, a specific population, or a particular time period. You don’t have to focus your topic in all these ways; these are just some possibilities:

Why is it important to focus a topic? If it’s too broad, you’ll be overwhelmed. For example, searching for sources on “education” would bring up an enormous amount of information, but focusing your search on “how school vouchers will hurt already economically strapped public schools” will provide a more manageable set of results. On the other hand, your topic mustn’t be too narrow, as you will have a hard time finding enough information (or the required type of information), and not have enough issues to develop effectively. In this situation, your paper may lack context and depth.

Following are some examples of research questions and thesis statements that are problematic, and some suggestions for fixing them:

SEARCH TECHNIQUES

Search techniques are methods used to search for information on a topic, allowing you to turn your research question or thesis statement into a search statement. This section covers different techniques to formulate effective searches: keywords/synonyms, Boolean operators, phrase searching, and truncation. These techniques are combined to develop search statements used in various search tools (e.g., library catalogs, article databases, Google, and Google Scholar). An additional technique covered later in the textbook involves using the limiters (sometimes called facets) available in the search tools you are using.

KEYWORDS & SYNONYMS

Keywords are the main ideas in your research question or thesis statement, used to search for information on your topic. Sometimes an idea will include more than one word to describe the concept. Examples of phrases are concepts like “global warming,” “stem cell,” or “gun control.” Authors may use different terms to describe the same concept — but you don’t want to miss their articles just because they use a different word. That’s why synonyms are important when searching for information. For example, a synonym for “cat” is “feline.”

Let’s take the question: How has the Internet influenced students’ learning styles?

• This question has three main concepts: Internet, students, and learning styles.
• Internet and students are both keywords.
• “Learning styles” is a phrase because the concept has more than one word. When you use a phrase in a search statement, you will use quotation marks around it.
• Synonyms for the keyword Internet are Web, online, WWW, or World Wide Web. Depending on how much information you find, you could also use additional terms for things one might do on the internet, like social media or YouTube.
• Synonyms for the keyword students include learners, pupils, or scholars. In this case, it is important to consider when these words were used most frequently. Pupils, for example, may not be used very often in modern research about students, so a search with this might retrieve old results, or medical research, as the pupil is part of the eye’s anatomy. Instead, consider students from another perspective: what kind of students? The term undergraduate could be used to investigate higher education learning styles, while K-12 or high school could be used for learning styles in primary education.
• Finding synonyms for the phrase learning styles might be challenging but consider that you might want to focus on learning styles as a whole, but another researcher might have focused on just one or two learning styles. For this reason, it is beneficial to write down not only the actual words in the question or thesis, but alternate terms as well — in this case, terms such as auditory, visual, tactile, or kinetic.

Here’s another example. All main concepts are highlighted in yellow:

How might education in correctional facilities play a role in reducing recidivism?

PHRASE SEARCHING

Phrase searching occurs by placing quotation marks around multiple words or phrases, so the database looks only for the phrase and not for the words separately. By using quotation marks, you are telling the computer to only bring back results containing the terms you entered, in the exact order you typed them, such as in these examples:

“school vouchers”

“charter schools”

“academic achievement”

“school prayer”

Let’s look at our previous example:

How might education in correctional facilities play a role in reducing recidivism?

The term “correctional facilities” is a phrase and should be written in quotation marks when searching so the database searches for the terms together instead of separately. For example, by putting this phrase in quotes, you’ll avoid mismatched results about correctional techniques in horse training, or staffing problems in health facilities, and instead retrieve results that specifically include something about correctional facilities. Another phrase for this example would be the synonym for recidivism: “repeat offense.”

Note: Phrases should be short, only 2-3 words long. The longer the phrase, the less likely you are to find that exact phrase in your search. For example, you wouldn’t use “education in correctional facilities” or “role in reducing recidivism” in a search.

TRUNCATION

To truncate means to “chop off.” For example, think about the trunk of a tree – you could chop off all the branches and still be left with the trunk — or the base. When you truncate a word, you chop off the end, so the search tool can search for multiple endings – or branches that extend from the base. When you truncate, you chop off the end of a word so the computer can search for various endings. Here’s an example of how truncation works in a database:

• You search for the word advertisement and retrieve 23 results. All of these have the word advertisement in them.
• You truncate the term like this: advertis* You retrieve 850 results showing variants after the ‘s,’ such as
  • advertisE
  • advertisED
  • advertisER
  • advertisES
  • advertisING
  • advertisEMENT
  • advertisEMENTS

Truncation is a great way to broaden your search and pick up more results, but there are a few things that are important to remember when using truncation:

• Different databases use different truncation symbols. Most use an asterisk (*), but a few use exclamation points, question marks, and dollar signs. Use the database help screens to determine which symbols are appropriate. * ! ? $
• Truncation only picks up word ENDINGS, not synonyms. For example, truncating after the ‘n’ in science (scien*) will find science, sciences, and scientific, but it will NOT find the words biology, chemistry, or astronomy.
• Be careful where you place the truncation symbol. You don’t want to over truncate (or cut too much) and you also don’t want to under truncate (cut too little). For example, when we search the topic computers, we want to truncate to search for terms related to computers:

BOOLEAN OPERATORS

There are a number of Boolean operators. The ones we will focus on in this course are AND and OR. It is a good idea to capitalize Boolean operators when you use them in a search because some databases require it.

One of the less common Boolean operators is NOT, which is not generally used, even by advanced searchers, as it can inadvertently eliminate useful sources from a search’s results. For that reason, this course will focus on AND and OR. However, we will provide a brief overview of NOT.

As you might have guessed, the NOT operator eliminates all results that include the term you specify. For example, if you search for information about roadrunners, the species of bird, you may end up with articles that also talk about Roadrunner, the cartoon character. You could potentially get around this by searching for roadrunner NOT cartoon, or roadrunner NOT Wile E. Coyote. However, a better way to find the information you need could be a search for the scientific name, Geococcyx californianus. Or, you could include additional terms such as habitat, diet, predators, etc. The NOT might help, but it is usually possible to achieve similar results using other search techniques. Here are some other examples:

lions AND diet NOT zoo* — if you want to learn about what lions eat in the wild. Note that this would exclude any article that compared the diets of zoo lions to wild lions, which could help your research.

“peanut butter” AND sandwich NOT jelly — if you’d like to find out what types of sandwiches use peanut butter other than PB&J. Note again that this would exclude any list of sandwich recipes if it included jelly in even one recipe.

“traumatic brain injury” NOT football — if you want to learn about TBI caused by other things. Once again, note that any article that included football as a cause in addition to other causes would be eliminated.

AND connects all the main concepts and tells the computer you want ALL of the words in your search results. This narrows your search, giving you FEWER results. Usually, we think of AND as getting more, not less. For Thanksgiving dinner, you want pumpkin pie AND apple pie; in this example, you get more with AND. In a database, however, AND does the opposite, like if you walk into an ice cream shop and ask for ice cream, they give you 32 scoops. That’s too much, so you won’t have room for pie. So, you ask for only a scoop if it has chocolate. There are ten different flavors with chocolate, so now you are down to ten scoops — still too much. So, then you ask for a scoop if it has chocolate AND caramel because you have to have both. Now you have two scoops — and room for pie.

Here’s how that would look as a search:

“ice cream” = 32 scoops
“ice cream” AND chocolate = 10 scoops
“ice cream” AND chocolate AND caramel = 2 scoops

Another Example:

“peanut butter” AND jelly AND sandwich

If you connect these terms with AND, you will only get peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You will NOT get sandwiches with jelly only, sandwiches with only peanut butter, or peanut butter and jelly on crackers.

All three terms MUST be present, so you only get one kind of sandwich.

OR broadens your search, giving you more results. Using OR tells the database to find any of the terms where each word appears separately and where any terms appear together. Note: You must use parentheses around OR terms.

Example:

(“peanut butter” OR jelly) AND sandwich

If you connect the first two terms with OR, you will get peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sandwiches with jelly only, or sandwiches with only peanut butter. You still won’t get crackers, but you’ll get different kinds of sandwiches.

Peanut butter can be present, jelly can be present, or both can be present. Instead of only one kind of sandwich, you now have three different options. Remember, you may also end up with jelly-and-cream cheese sandwiches, or peanut butter and banana. They’ll still include your search term, but they may not be what you envisioned. Of course, it could also provide useful information you hadn’t considered.

Another Example:

(“peanut butter” OR jelly OR sandwich)

When you use OR to connect all the terms, you will likely get more results than you want. Not only will you get peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sandwiches with jelly only, or sandwiches with only peanut butter, but you’ll also get ham and cheese sandwiches, sandwiches with roast beef and onions, or pretty much any sandwich you can think of. You may also get how to make jelly or information about peanut butter allergies. Here you are telling the database to search for anything containing any one of those terms.

CREATING SEARCH STATEMENTS

Search statements are what you type into a search box to find information on your topic. You combine the search techniques covered in this chapter (keywords and synonyms, truncation, phrase searching, and Boolean operators) to create search statements. Let’s look at our previous example and go through the process step-by-step to create search statements:

Research question: How might education in correctional facilities play a role in reducing recidivism?

1. Choose keywords (main concepts): education, correctional facilities, recidivism
2. List all synonyms for these keywords:
   1. education
      schooling
      instruction
      learning
      tutoring
   2. correctional facilities
      jail
      prison
      penitentiary
      incarceration
   3. recidivism
      reoffending
      reoffence
      repeat offense
      repeat offenders
3. Truncate terms to pick up variant endings:
   1. educat*
      school*
      instruct*
      learn*
      tutor*
   2. correctional facilit*
      jail*
      prison*
      penitentiar*
      incarcerat*
   3. recidivis*
      reoffen*
      reoffence*
      repeat offense*
      repeat offend*
4. Put quotation marks around phrases (concepts that are two words or more)
5. Combine search techniques to create search statements. Any research question or thesis statement can have many possible search statements, and it’s a good idea to try more than one — you never know who may have answers to your questions but are using different vocabulary combinations. These are just a few examples:

SEARCH STATEMENTS VS NATURAL LANGUAGE QUERIES

If you use Google to search for information, you probably know it is easy to type in your question to find information. This is called a natural language query; it means putting things into the search box in your own words, without any special symbols or format — as if you were talking to someone. While this works well in Google, it does not work as well (or at all) in most of the library’s subscription databases. For example, if you wanted to find out how high the Empire State Building was using a natural language search, you might type in How high is the Empire State Building? If you are using a keyword-based search in a database, you would type in the search statement “Empire State Building” AND height.