Last week, I had the opportunity to present a research skills lesson to a Year 12 Community and Family Studies Class. They are undertaking an assessment task that requires them to locate newspaper articles on homeless people and the aged.
I embraced this opportunity given how I value the role of newspapers in education and would like to see students engage with newspapers (preferably in print form but digitally as a minimum) to locate valuable and reliable material.
The presentation focused on:
- How to access newspaper databases via the State Library of NSW
- Use of Boolean operators and filters within databases to narrow down their search results
- Evaluate the usefulness and reliability of articles using the RAVEN source evaluation model (similar to CRAPP)
- How to save and back up articles relevant to their research for the task.
I focused on the following databases:
- Australia and New Zealand Newsstream (Proquest) - I performed a live demonstration on the screen of how to use filters, e.g. selecting publications, timeframes, etc
- Sydney Morning Herald (Library Edition)
- PressReader
- Newsbank & Factiva (alternatives for broader searches)
I even showed the students how to download, save and email articles to their inboxes and obtain an academic citation for their reference list or bibliography, as databases such as Australia and New Zealand Newstream can prepare them for you in line with referencing systems.
One key aspect of the presentation was debunking Google or search engines as the best place to find news as databases are:
- More reliable and credible
- Current
- Relevant to Research
- Able to provide better search options
- Able to offer more options such as newspapers, archives and regional news
- Able to filter out "fake news" or unreliable sources
The weaknesses of a Google search are:
- Results are not always reliable
- Based on what it thinks that you, the user wants
- Preference to list "popular" results at the top of search results
- Paywalls
The students certainly enjoyed the presentation and hopefully do well. The students asked me some great questions; many of them are regulars in the library for their study periods or simply visiting during their break times.
