STANDARD ONE
We are constantly bombarded with information; it is everywhere, and consists of everything you take in by your senses.
But for the purposes of university study, and for this tutorial, information can be defined as any documentation that can be used to create knowledge. It can therefore consist of everything from spoken words, written communications, sheets of music, photographs and paintings, to computer codes and scientific formulae.
Research can be defined as the process of collecting, organizing, and analyzing information to create knowledge. But as more knowledge is created it becomes harder to track where that knowledge and information is unless it is collected and organized effectively.
People can organize information in a variety of ways. Sometimes the organization is systematic, such as the alphabetical listing of a telephone directory; sometimes it is more subjective, such as organizing your books by binding color. Ideally, information should be organized according to who will use it and how. Ultimately, however, organizing a large amount of information can be very difficult, even for experts.
Regardless of how information is organized, people with different information needs might have different methods for searching for information. Consider, for example, the different ways libraries and academic disciplines organize information.
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Libraries organize their holdings (usually books, but also perhaps videos, maps, and other objects) by adopting a classification scheme, a way to organize materials by subject. The two most common library classification schemes in the United States are the Dewey Decimal Classification system and the Library of Congress Classification system. Both systems contain combinations of letters and numbers to create call numbers by which items can be located on the library shelves.
Note: Although these are the most common classification schemes, others exist, including the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), used for medical information; and the Yale Classification scheme, used at the Yale University Library until about 1970, which in part organizes materials by size.
Besides helping to locating items, classification schemes that organize items by subject also keep similar items together on the shelves. This facilitates browsing. A call number for one item can thereby lead to other discoveries that are shelved nearby.
Libraries also must organize other information, such as periodicals, namely newspapers and journals. Paper newspapers and journals often are housed temporarily in easy-to-access locations. Older newspapers are often retained only on microfilm for easier storage; older journals may be bound and their runs shelved either separately from or intermingled with the other holdings.
Journals and significant newspapers are often indexed either in paper or in electronic form. The articles then can be located by searching the indexes. Electronic databases may provide citations for the article, an abstract, or in some cases, even the article in full text.
The library collection as a whole is collected in a searchable catalog. Previously, access to library catalogs was provided in the form of cabinets of paper library cards. Today, libraries typically provide access to their holdings via electronic online catalogs. Search the catalog for authors, book and journal titles, and names of databases. Article titles are not found by searching the catalog.
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Different academic disciplines also value and organize information differently. Fields such as medicine, computer science, and engineering, from which research is often immediately applied to solve pratical problems, value and use different information than disciplines such as philosophy, English, or history, for which research is not typically applied to solve problems. Many scientific fields, for example, value the newest information, while many fields in the humanities continue to value older material.
Regardless of the discipline, subject information can be found and retrieved via a number of paths. Information on psychology, for example, can be found via a prominent journal, an index of scholarly journal abstracts, or through a respected society Web page; it could also be found in a database that includes psychological information as well as information from other disciplines, or from a resource on drug interactions that may include a section on psychological side-effects.
The paths to find psychological resources therefore make up a wide web of interconnections that are not always obvious to seasoned researchers, let alone beginning scholars. Today, many of these facets may be linked to each other by means of the Internet, but much information is still not available online, and there are still many disciplines that continue to rely on traditional paper for publishing and sharing information, making the linking of such paths even more difficult recognize and follow.
Increasingly, cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields, such as American Studies, Environmental Studies, and Women's Studies, are challenging the traditional ways knowledge has been valued and structured, and we recognize even more possible interconnections and paths to information. Therefore, in order to understand the research assignments you will be given, it is important to understand what value the fields you study place on different kinds of information and the sources by which to find it.
Because of the difficuly in organizing and classifying materials, it is important to remain flexible when thinking about the information your research requires. Skill and patience is required when searching for information at any stage, but this is increasingly so throughout undergraduate university study as you begin to learn the research process. Good research is not as easy as pointing a browser at a search engine. It is therefore essential to know as much about information, its sources, and its uses as possible.
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