1. Introduction to Research for
Mechanical Systems Engineering
Using the Library Resource Centre
Melanie Parlette-Stewart, BA, MLIS
Program Liaison
February 2013

2. I AM . . .
Melanie Parlette-Stewart
LRC Program Liaison
School of Engineering and Information Technology
Email: mparlettestewart@conestogac.on.ca
Twitter: @ConestogaLib_MP

3. TODAY we will :
1. Improve your search skills through “pre-searching” and
“re-searching” to refine keyword strategies
2. Locate various types of resources to balance your research
with high quality information from the LRC’s collections
3. Understand the criteria you can use to evaluate resources to
ensure they are of good quality.
4. Discover resources to assist you in creating proper citations

4. Off-Campus Access Visit the LRC to
PIN NUMBERS - You can use your PIN to: get your PIN.
• Access resources from Off-Campus Don’t forget to bring
• Renew a book, place a hold your student card
• Review your account with the 2013 sticker
on it!

5. LRC Homepage  Research Help  Engineering  Mechanical Systems Engineering
YOUR Research Guide
http://bit.ly/MechanicalSys
Key Tabs:
• Articles from Databases
• Books . . .
• Cite Your Sources
• Contact Us

6. Today’s Research Topic is….
•Is there a relationship
Facebook use and academic
performance?

7. Finding A Source to Answer
Your Question
• Where do we begin?
• Google
• Wikipedia
• Other suggestions…

10. Types of Sources
What’s the Difference?
Scholarly Journals Popular Magazines Trade Journals Conference Papers Technical Reports
• Scholarly research or • General interest articles, • Industry related • Author is scholar in field, • Author is often a scholar
projects. entertainment, or information, news and academic or researcher or a scientist, engineer,
• Illustrations are usually information aimed at trends. Some • Conference papers tend government contractor,
charts and graphs. the consumer. Usually illustrations. to be more recent than or technical personnel.
• Authors are authorities colour photographs and • Authors are industry journal articles, but may • Published by a
in their field. Often illustrations. experts, professionals, be considered less corporation or
professors or • Articles are usually or practitioners who are authoritative depending educational institution
researchers. written by magazine not always identified on the review and • Reputation is everything
• Peer review process is in staff, freelance writers, • Typically no peer review acceptance process • Typically not peer
place where the content or may be anonymous. or refereeing process. • Peer Review Process reviewed
of an article is reviewed • No peer review or may or may not be Example:
by one or more experts refereeing process. Examples: rigorous Design and Fabrication of a
in the field. ASME Mechanical Tank-Applied Broad Area
Examples: Engineering Magazine Example: Cooling Shield Coupon
Examples: Wired, Popular Mechanics Proceedings of ASME Heat
IEEE/ASME transactions Transfer Division
on mechatronics

11. Balanced Research
 Effective research taps into a variety of sources
Encyclopedias
Websites Books
Technical Scholarly
Papers Journals
Conference
Newspapers
Papers
Professional
Magazine (aka
Trade
Journals)

12. Choosing Better Sources
• How can you tell trustworthy information (the “better” information) from less-
trustworthy information (“worse” information)?
The CARS Test
• Credibility Look for believable, well written information that is free
of bias. Locate information about the author(s) and their credentials. How
credible are the authors, what is their level of expertise on this particular
topic.
• Accuracy The information should be up-to-date, clear. You can confirm
accuracy by locating information from a variety of sources. Look for a last
updated date.
• Reasonableness Information should be present objective and
balanced arguments.
• Support Other sources should support the information found. Always
look for a reference list, bibliography or citations demonstrating where the
information came from.

13. Pre-Searching:
Thinking About Your Search
• What are the keywords or phrases in the
question that you would use in your search?
• Also think of synonyms and related terms….

14. Pre-Searching:
Academic
Facebook
Performance
Related Terms or Synonyms (words that Related Terms or Synonyms (words that
mean the same as the first term, above) mean the same as the first term, above)

15. Let’s Research :
 LRC Discover Tool
Facebook and Academic Performance
http://www.conestogac.on.ca/lrc/

16. Let’s Re/search:
Don’t forget to
Re/Search:
 Full Text
 Date
 Source Type
 Subject

17. Searching A Database. . .
Actually let’s The power of
Search Costs search Life
Cycle Costs the *
Narrow by Life Cycle
Let’s add
Publication
Date
Energy Cost*
Narrow by
Peer Reviewed
* (the asterisk wildcard)
As the name implies, * can be substituted for any number of letters. This is particularly useful to include all words
with a certain term and any suffix after it. Simply apply the asterisk to the end of a term and it will return all
documents containing that term, followed by anything. For example: biostatistic* will find biostatistician or
biostatistics or biostatistical

18. Searching A Database. . .
Mechanical “Mechanical Expand Search by
Engineering Engineering” including Full Text
Narrow by Publication
Add to
Peer Date 2007 -
RefWorks
Reviewed 2013
Quotation Marks: " "
Enclose specific phrases in quotation marks. This will direct the search engine to search the
database for documents containing that exact phrase. A search for analytical chemist
(without quotes) will return any document containing analytical and chemist with anything
in between. If you place quotes around the phrase, searching for “facility management“ it
will only documents with facility and management right beside each other.

19. Let’s Re/search:
Don’t forget to try using
other “PRE-
SEARCHING” terms:
Ex: Social Networks and
Media and Grades
. . . and again:
don’t forget to
Re/Search:
 Full Text
 Date
 Source Type
 Subject

20. WHAT IS GOOGLE SCHOLAR?
A search interface for locating citations to academic
research—and accessing the full-text online (sometimes).
This is the definition of any research database.
Google Scholar is just one more in a host of research tools
similar to those offered by the library (but using it is free to
all).
Reading articles found in it is not free (not always, anyway).

21. What can you search using
google scholar?
“…articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from
academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories,
universities and other web sites.”
• Some resources are “open access,” i.e. free
• Many have a cost-per-article
• The LRC can help improve access to the costly articles (but
more on that later)
Google. (2011). About Google Scholar. Retrieved from http://scholar.google.ca/intl/en/scholar/about.html

22. What can’t you find using
google scholar?
• Google doesn’t search everything, and neither does Google
Scholar
• Only searches “scholarly” sources
• So it does not search the following resources:
• Newspapers
• Trade Magazines
• Professional Magazines
• General Interest Magazines

23. Google ≠ Good
• What exactly is included? We don’t know and Google won’t
say.
• Calls into question content providers, i.e. how does Google
define “scholarly”?
• Good for “casual” research, but not acceptable as a single
source for coverage of the literature on a topic.
• Coverage is unknown
• Relevancy Ranking of search results is questionable
• Narrowing/sorting search results is rudimentary
• No controlled vocabulary
• Citations may be inaccurate due to reliance of web crawling
extraction (e.g. Author Name: P Login)
Jacsó, P. Google Scholar's ghost authors. Library Journal 134: 26-27.

24. Linking to LRC resources
• Go to Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.ca)
• Click “Scholar Preferences” in upper right hand of the search
page.
• On the Scholar Preferences page, in the “Library Links”
section, enter for “Conestoga” in the search box and click
“Find Library”.
• Checkboxes appear below the search box.
• Checkmark the Conestoga links.
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Save Preferences.”
• Your searches will now show links to Conestoga LRC resources
that contain articles from your search results.

25. Citing our Sources
It's important to cite sources you used in your research for several reasons:
 To show your reader you've done proper research by
listing sources you used to get your information
 To be a responsible scholar by giving credit to other
researchers and acknowledging their ideas
 To avoid plagiarism by quoting words and ideas used by
other authors
 To allow your reader to track down the sources you used
by citing them accurately in your paper by way of
footnotes, a bibliography or reference list

26. Let’s Cite our Sources:
Don’t forget to check
the style guides to
make sure your
citation is correct.

27. Need more sources?
Explore the “Mechanical
Systems Engineering”
Research Help Guide to
discover Databases focused
on Mechanical Engineering.
 These database have:
 Advanced Search Tools
 Subject Specific Material
http://exploreguides.conestogac.on.ca/MSE

28. Summary
Researching using the LRC
 Use Discovery Search first
 www.conestogac.on.ca/lrc
 After that, try a relevant Research Help guide for links to even more
resources to search
 http://exploreguides.conestogac.on.ca/MSE
Remember no ‘citation generator’ is ever perfect
 Check it manually using the Writing Centre’s resources for your Citations Style.
 www.conestogac.on.ca/learningcommons/resources/writing.jsp

29. HELP AT THE A1109
LIBRARY
 Visit the Service Desk
 Email or Phone
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