HDFS 328: Research Methods

The 6 W's

1. What is your issue/ topic?  
2. Why does it matter?
3. Who does it affect?
4. Where has this issue been documented?
5. When has this issue been observed?
6. How can we address it?

Questions that you know the answer to can help you develop your search terminology, questions you don't know the answer to help show the path that you'll need to follow to fill in the gaps in your knowledge. You'll also find new questions along the way.

Take a look at these slides for different ways of answering these questions in different disciplines.

Most of us have heard that you need to evaluate information you find on the internet, but we're all human and we have human traits that can sometimes make that hard. Here's how those traits show up in information evaluation:

• Confirmation Bias - We're more likely to choose sources that confirm our preexisting beliefs and search algorithms support this by showing us more of what we've clicked on in the past.
• Authority Bias - We often associate authorship with authority, but online anyone can be an author, and the more skilled at web development they are the more authoritative a site can appear.

To mitigate some of these natural human biases, we need to practice thinking critically when choosing sources. Here are some skills that can help:

• Analyze the formatting of the source
• Investigate the organization that produced a source
• Identify whose perspectives are represented in a source and whose are absent
• Read multiple sources to help you identify where a consensus exists (also called lateral reading)
   

When using Google Scholar, it helps to have the UD Get It link enabled to make finding your articles through the library easier.  

1) Go to google scholar and click on Settings 

2) Click on Library Links from the left hand navigation column, type in University of Delaware, and check off the box next to Get It.