Quick start to Information Literacy

Visit the Library

The Vrijhof is home to the library of the University of Twente. The study facilities and service desk located on the second floor of the building are open to students and staff of the UT. Other visitors are welcome with a valid library card. A part of the UT collection can be found in the ITC building.

For contact information and opening hours, visit the library webpage.

Library game

For an interactive tour of the UT library, you can play the Library game. For more information, contact your Information Specialist.

To find materials in the library, you need to search in our discovery tool FindUT. You can use the options like truncation and booleans to specify your search even more. In FindUT, you will find digital books, publications, as well as our library's physical collection.

Requesting a book

Most of the physical book collection is held in a depot and is not available on the shelves in the library. To get a book from the depot or a book that is on loan you should make a request for it. A book that is on loan can be renewed unless it is requested by another person.

Follow these steps to request a book:

1. Click on the title of the book you want to request. The library record for this book will open.
2. On the right side, you see the "Access Options". Click on the "Request item" button.
3. Log in with your UT account.
4. Select your pick-up location and (optional) select the copy you wish to request.
5. Now click on submit, and you will be informed when the book is ready for pick-up.

When you need a publication not available in the UT library, it can be acquired via Inter Library Loan (ILL). There is a form for Interlibrary Loan Requests on the website. This is not free of charge for students.

A lot of information can be found in digital form collected in scientific databases or university repositories. The most important scientific databases and their descriptions can be found under the heading "Databases". The library helps you find your way in this digital overload of information and provides tools to find and use this information correctly and efficiently.

To help you along, here are some important links:

During your studies, you will need research information for your papers and other assignments. The skills you have and continue to develop will make the process of finding information much easier. The combined resources of the UT library and the Internet create an almost endless amount of information available to you, but which sources are there and when do you use them? See the table below for a short overview.

Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources

A scientific journal is a periodical publication of articles written by researchers in an academic field. The articles are (almost always) peer reviewed by experts in the field in order to insure a high quality and prevent the publicaiton of invalid research. Articles in scientific journals usually cover a specific topic or field of research. You can find scientific articles in the different academic databases you have access to at the UT. For more information on different types of scientific article, see this website.

But how to tell wether a journal is actually scientific? Check the video below for some guidelines.

Peer review

One important indicator for a scientific journal is peer review. When an article is peer reviewed the quality is checked by other researchers in the same field of study. See the video for extra information.

To get more insight in the process of peer review, see the following example of an original article and the peer review it received. The original article. The review by a peer reviewer.

Anatomy of a scientific article

A scientific journal article is an original contribution that appears in a published scientific journal. Often you can recognize a journal article by its structure or anatomy.  See the video below some further explanation.

A professional journal or trade journal is a collection of articles and images about diverse topics of applied science and professional news items. Usually, these articles are written by journalists or scholars and are geared toward a public interested in science in general or in a specific field of applied science. Specialized magazines may also cover very practical information for professionals in the field of, e.g., forestry, pulp and paper industry, electrical engineering, education, etc. They are often published by professional organizations in these fields. Professional journals may cover very "serious" material, but to find consistent scholarly information you should use the scientific journals.

Professional journals, like scientific journals and newspapers, are called "periodicals" because they are published at regular intervals throughout the year. You may use a professional journal:

• to find popularized or simplified information on scientific research or discoveries.
• to find up-to-date information about current events for a specific professional group.
• to find information on practical applications of science or illustrated reports of scientific work.

Conference papers are original contributions that were presented at a scientific conference. Be aware, they are not always peer-reviewed. Scientists often present a paper at a conference to inform their peers of their work, especially their new results and ideas and to get feedback.

A conference is somewhat like an open market or bazaar - don't believe everything the "seller" tells you!
However, in some fields (e.g., computer and information science, public administration) major conferences are highly-regarded, the papers are strictly peer-reviewed, and the published proceedings are good sources.

But since conference papers can have different levels of reliability you have to be careful. The original submissions, with no quality control; typically distributed at the meeting itself may not be so reliable. Sometimes they are also difficult to obtain after the conference is over.

Conference papers are sometimes published in conference proceedings. In that case they are likely to be peer reviewed.

(E)Books cover virtually any topic, fact or fiction. For research purposes, you will probably look for books that synthesize all the information on one topic to support a particular argument or thesis or to find more estabilished information on a topic. Since books often take a lot more time to publish than journals articles, the information is often a bit older and based on extensive research one or multiple topics.

Book chapters are original contributions collected into an edited book on a specific topic.
These are typically invited by the book editor and may undergo some peer review; certainly, they are edited. Often they are review articles or summaries. Quality control is not as rigid as for journal articles.

You use a (e)book:

• when looking for comprehensive information on a topic.
• to put your topic in context with other important issues.
• to find historical information.
• to find summaries of research to support an argument.

A lot of subjects or fields of study work with guidelines or standards. Standards are a set of rules or requirements widely agreed upon by the industry or imposed by the government, to ensure a certain level of quality. An example is the ISO standards. Guidelines, on the other hand, provide general guidance and additional advice and support for policies, standards, or procedures. These documents can be used in your report as a source of information. Don’t start searching on google in the hope you find something. Look for them using specific databases and websites; see some examples below. Make sure the information you found is actually a guideline or standard, or just information for the general public.

Dutch standards and guidelines can be found here:

• Nenconnect
• CBS
• Richtlijnen database
• RIVM

International standards and guidelines can be found here:

• World Health Originzation (WHO)
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
• National Institute for Health (NIH)

Reports may be considered to be a special type of book. These are publications from a (government) institution or project, and often contain primary data and maps which do not appear elsewhere. They may be difficult to obtain, but if they are the only source of information, you should definitely use and cite them. 
They are not peer-reviewed; the quality control was only as good as the project. Because reports are often meant for a wider public, they tend to be publicly available. This especially goes for government reports.

You use a report if you want to find information from a particular institute or a particular project.

Examples of reports

• Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST). 1998. ARGAP final report: State-wide biodiversity mapping for Arkansas. Report, Center For Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST), Fayetteville, AR.
• World Health Organization (WHO).
• International Water Management Institute (IWMI) : Research Reports

Next to academic literature, there is also grey literature. The term grey literature covers a lot of different literature that is not produced or shared via traditional publishing. Therefore you often cannot find this literature in databases.

Grey literature is often described as information produced outside traditional publishing and distribution channels. Another description comes from the Third International Conference on Grey Literature*:

"Information produced on all levels of government, academia, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing ie. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body."

Some common examples of grey literature are:

• Preprints
• Reports
• Theses (BSc/MSc)
• Government documentation
• Conference abstracts
• Technical specifications
• Technical/commercial documentation
• Lectures, readers & handouts
• Patents
• Blogs
• Newsletters

Because there are so many different types of grey literature, the quality can vary. Where most academic literature has been peer reviewed and went through a formal publication process, grey literature has not. Therefore you should be critical when using grey literature for your studies or research. In some cases, the CRAAP test might be a useful tool to guide your judgment on the quality of the information.

*Farace, D.J. (1998). Foreword - In: Third International Conference on Grey Literature: Perspectives on the Design and Transfer of Scientific and Technical Information, 13-14. November 1997 in Luxembourg. GL'97 Conference Proceedings, p. iii. - (GL Conference Series, ISSN 1386-2316 ; No. 3). ISBN 90-74854-17-6

The Web allows you to access most types of information on the Internet through a browser.

One of the main features of the Web is the ability to link to other related information quickly. The Web contains information beyond plain text, including sounds, images, and video. We are talking here about public domain Web resources. The Web also provides access to many printed sources of the aforementioned types, e.g., online versions of technical reports, and books.

Some information is only available via the Web and is not permanent: tomorrow’s version may be different from today’s, it may move to another URL, or it may even disappear. It is often difficult to determine the author or even a correct title. These are commonly known as "web pages". These are:

• not peer-reviewed;
• not permanent;
• not 'published' in the traditional sense

You may use the web:

• to find current news and information.
• to link to information provided by the library over the Internet.
• to find information about companies.
• to find information from all levels of government.
• to find both expert and popular opinions.

Fake news

Because the Web is so open and unsupervised, you need to be very critical of the information you choose to use. Apart from the quality of the information, you also run into actual deliberate 'fake news', therefore it is important you evaluate web sources properly, e.g. by using CRAAP. See the video below for an explanation of fake news and misinformation.

Filter bubble

Something else to be aware of when browsing the Web is the risk of getting caught in a 'filter bubble'. Website algorithms guess what information a user wants, based on information about the user, such as location, past click behavior, and search history. The result is a selection of the available data. The algorithm may block out more results than a user may consider necessary, which can isolate a person in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. 

To know more about the Filter Bubble, see this Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s

When you need to write an essay, solve a problem, or do research, the first thing you need is information. Selecting the best source to search, choosing the most appropriate words, and combining them successfully might be difficult. Searching is a process of discovery that may expand your knowledge and broaden your views. It can be one of the most creative aspects of research. Once you master the necessary information skills, you might find you enjoy it.

To see how information skills fit in the research process, take a look at this video:

The easiest way to search for information electronically is to enter a couple of keywords into the search box of the resource and see what type of results you get. This strategy, however, will often result in too few, too many, or irrelevant results. In order to retrieve the most relevant results, you will need to create a search strategy. The more care and thought you put into your search strategy, the more relevant your search results will be. For designing a search strategy it is important to identify your information need and make a clear definition of the topic.

There are different stages in the process of building a search strategy:

1. Clear and focused research question
2. Identify the key concepts
3. Synonyms, related terms, broader/narrower terms
4. Create query including Boolean and search operators
5. What information are you looking for? 
6. Where will you be able to find this information? 
7. Start searching 

As shown in the video in the introduction each project starts with a good question. But how do you create a good question? The following checklist can help you.             

• Is it an open-ended question? A good question is often not answerable with a simple “yes” or “no”.
• Is it appropriate in scope? Make sure your question is focused and narrow enough that it can be answered within the duration of your project.
• Does it suggest topics that can be measured? The question should allow you to analyze data.
• Is answering the question researchable? Make sure you have access to a suitable amount of quality research materials. (e.g. available databases). 
• Is it clear and focused? The question should clearly state what you are going to research.
• Is the research question a new spin on an old idea, or does it address a knowledge gap?

There are different frameworks you can use to help structure your research question, like Spice or Spider. The different frameworks are applicable for different kind of studies.

When you have a good research question to work with, the next step is to identify the key concepts in this question. Using the right search terms makes all the difference. The following steps will help you define your search strategy.

1. Write down your key concepts
2. What other terms are likely to be used for your key concepts? Include search terms such as synonyms, translations, broader and narrower terms
3. Find more alternative terms using sources like the Internet, encyclopedia, dictionaries or thesauri.
4. Create your search query and start searching.
5. Based on your results, adjust your search query to find more relevant literature.

Key concepts

Brainstorming helps you choose good search terms before you begin. Look at the key concepts for the following research questions.

The key concepts for the research question; "How are birds affected by wind turbines?", are 'birds' and 'wind turbines'. Avoid terms like affect (except the noun) and effect as search terms, even when you’re looking for studies that report effects or effectiveness.

The key concepts for the research question; "What lesson plans are available for teaching fractions?", are 'lesson plans' and 'fractions'. Stick to what’s necessary. For instance, don’t include: children—nothing in the research question suggests the lesson plans are for children; teaching—teaching isn’t necessary because lesson plans imply teaching; available—available is not necessary.

The key concepts for the research question; "How is the sewage system in cities affected by increasing heavy rainfall?", are 'sewage system', 'cities' and 'rainfall'.

Synonyms

What about alternative terms and synomyns. Let's take a closer look at the last research question, "How is the sewage system in cities affected by increasing heavy rainfall?" Include words or phrases that means exactly or nearly the same, consider (in)formal and technical terminology, add acronyms and abbreviations for words, phrases and organizations, and consider alternative word endings and plurals. 

In this section, we will take a closer look at how to create a query using Boolean operators. The micro-lectures below give a brief overview.

By using the Boolean operators, you may define the relationship between search terms.

"AND" operator:

• retrieves records that include both terms
• narrows your search
• used for terms or concepts that are not related

"OR" operator:

• retrieves records that include either of the terms
• broadens your search
• used for related terms or concept

"NOT" operator:

• retrieves records that include one term but not another term; eliminates all the records containing the second term
• narrows your search
• may eliminate relevant records

Truncation

Truncation tells the database you're searching to fill in for one or more letters in your keyword search. Truncation symbols can be used either inside the word or at the end of it. While each database uses its own truncation symbols, the asterisk * is used most often. 

As a general rule, your search retrieval is greater when using truncation. But, be careful because you might find records with an unexpected variation of your search term.

Example: diet* - also finds diethylstilbestrol (a synthetic estrogen)

Search matrix and query

By using Boolean operators, you can now combine the key concepts and alternative terms from the earlier search matrix example. See below where to use AND and OR to connect your key concepts and terms.

Translating this into a search query that you can use in a database will lead to :

("sewage systems" OR sewer OR sewage OR gutter OR drainage) AND (cities OR town OR "urban area" OR metropolis OR municipality OR village) AND (rainfall OR precipitation OR rain OR downpour OR "extreme weather" OR "climate change")

Searching in bibliographic databases and library catalogs will result in a list of sources. To make a good selection from such a list, which can be long, you must be able to evaluate these sources, and, thereby, the documents they represent.

The main question you should ask yourself is whether the content of the source is appropriate for your research topic or assignment. Is it worth the effort of getting the full text and reading it? Evaluating the number of results and learning how to determine the relevance and authority of a given resource for your research is one of the core skills of the research process.

Quantity of results

When you look at the number of results, you are judging the quantity of results. The table below gives an indication of how to improve the quantity and relevance of your results.

If you get stuck searching, something you could try is 'snowballing'. Here you look at the references of relevant articles to see what papers the author(s) have used for their research. This will help you to find more relevant sources, but also to get inspiration for alternative terms or concepts. This is backward snowballing, but you can also try forward snowballing by looking at papers that cite the source you found. The first gives you older information, and the latter gives you newer information. Some databases also provide you with related articles.

Quality of results

A great deal of the information on the internet and especially www resources are posted to the world every day, but the quality and trustworthiness vary. You should realize that:

• Anyone can put something on the internet - for almost any purpose
• They can say anything they like - be it true or false
• And leave it there as long as they like - without ever updating it
• Or change it without warning - perhaps even remove it completely

Unlike professional journals and commercial publishers who have a system of editorial review and external referees to ensure the quality, information can be spread over the Internet by anyone without regard to accuracy, validity, or bias. Some websites even look reliable but consist entirely of fake information (e.g. https://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/, https://speld.nl/).
If you want to use information from the web for serious research, you need to cultivate the habit of healthy skepticism, of questioning everything you find with critical thinking.

It's important to learn to judge the quality and trustworthiness of information you find on the Internet. A tool you use for this is the CRAAP test. This video below explains how it works.

When you search in scientific databases, you can be sure the sources have gone through a quality check, e.g. peer review. The same cannot be said for sources found on the Internet (e.g. websites, reports, blogs, conference papers, preprints). For these sources, you can use the CRAAP test to judge the quality yourself.

To help you along, here is a document you can use for your CRAAP test.

Search log
Searching is a repetitive process. In order to prevent doing things twice, try using a search log to keep track of your searches. Be as precise as possible when logging, so you can continue where you left off next time. A search log also shows you clearly what effects the changes you made have on your search results. A search log will make your searching systematic, it will save you time, and it allows you to ask for help when you get stuck. Below is an example of a search log, using the search query from our previous example.

• FindUT
• UT Research Information
• Google Scholar

Referencing is important to prevent you from plagiarizing and to give appropriate credit to the authors/makers. To make this easy for you you can use a reference manager.

At the UT we have a subscription to Endnote. For more information go this website. When you need help with reference managers (e.g. Endnote, Mendeley, Zotero etc.) contact your Information Specialist.

In the following situations we talk about plagiarism:

• Submitting past work
• Paraphrasing without acknowledgment
• Summarizing without acknowledgment
• 'Copy' and 'paste' another person's work into your own work without acknowledgment

Plagiarism is not allowed in scientific communication.

A well-produced video by the University of Bergen on plagiarism, which is fun to watch as well:

For more information on plagiarism click here

For more general information on publication ethics, see www.publicationethics.org/  

Whenever you use information in a report from other sources it is compulsory to cite the original source in the text and reference the source in your reference list at the end of your document. It is not allowed to use information from somebody else as being your own information. References should be clear (must give full details of the item), consistent (cite in the same way) and correct (use the proper structure).

Here are some examples of reference for different sources in three different output styles.

Examples of references