Week Ten Assignment

Week Ten Assignment

My Experience with Google Scholar

• I used the search terms: “Jeffrey Dahmer” criminology
• I found a scholarly article about autistic spectrum disorders that Jeffrey Dahmer may have been afflicted with. It has been cited in other articles and is titled “The Dangers of Posthumous Diagnoses and the Unintended Consequences of Facile Associations”. I haven't found this article in other databases because it is an advanced scholarly article from the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. I don't even understand the title!
• I limited the search to years 2000-2015 and articles that include citations.
• I will use Google Scholar in the future to use the citation and related article tools. If I am searching for a specific topic these tools will come in handy if my search results are a bit sparse.

Saved Full Text Article

Title: “The Case of Jeffrey Dahmer: Sexual Serial Homicide from a Neuropsychiatric Developmental Perspective”

Authors: J. Arturo Silva, M.D.; Michelle M. Ferrari, M.D.; and Gregory B. Leong, M.D.

Journal of Forensic Science

http://www.murderpedia.org/male.D/images/dahmer-jeffrey/docs/jeffrey-dahmer-silva-et-al.pdf

Week 9 Assignment

Week Nine Assignment

Part One

1. Anderson, T.D. (2006), “Uncertainty in action: observing information seeking within the creative processes of scholarly research”, Information Research, Vol. 12 No. 1, available at: http://InformationR.net/ir/12-1/paper283.html (accessed 24 December 2006).

• This is a website.
• I would use the url link provided to view the article.
• The entire journal article is available on the website.

2. Belkin, N.J. (1980), “Anomalous states of knowledge as a basis for information retrieval”,

Canadian Journal of Information Science, Vol. 5, pp. 133-43.

• This is a periodical.
• I would search for the journal article on SearchIt to see if WSUV has a subscription.
• WSU does have an electronic subscription and the full text is available online.

3. Case, D. (2007), Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs

and Behavior, 2nd ed., Academic Press, Amsterdam.

• This is a book.
• I will use SearchIt, limit the search to Vancouver to see if the book is available on campus.
• The book would need to be requested from the Holland/Terrell Libraries at the Pullman campus.

4. Chowdhury, G.G. (2004), “Access and usability issues of scholarly electronic publications”,

In Gorman, G.E. and Rowland, F. (Eds), Publishing in an Electronic Era. International

Yearbook of Library and Information Management, 2004/2005, Facet Publishing, London,

pp. 77-98.

• This is a book chapter.
• I will use SearchIt to search for the book chapter.
• SearchIt didn't produce any results. I couldn't find the book in the SearchIt database. I'll need to request it through Illiad.

Part Two

1. Keppel RD: Investigation of the serial offender: linking cases through M.O. and signature, in Serial Offenders. Edited by Schlesinger LB. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2000, pp 121–34
 - This is a chapter in a book.
 - To get the chapter or the book, it would have to be requested through Illiad 

2. Cornwell P: Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed. New York: Putnam, 2002 
 - This is a book.
 - This book is available at the Holland/Terrel Libraries in Pullman. 

Part Three

This weeks assignment taught me some things I already knew, such as citations for different resources will include different information and there are many styles of citations. I'd like to think that I'm familiar with APA and MLA but I often forget what to put in a citation and where to put it. It is very helpful to refer to the Perdue Online Writing Lab to make sure you're properly citing your resources. One helpful thing that I learned this week is the importance of using the reference lists of articles and books to find a wider variety of references for your research topic. I find that I'm better equipped to search databases and deciphering citations in reference lists.

Week 8 Assignment

Three subject specific databases searches and one full text article from each database: 

Biology Databases: Science Direct

Defining and classifying serial murder in the context of perpetrator motivation, Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume 31, Issue 3, May–June 2003, Pages 287-292
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235203000096

Psychology Databases: PsychINFO
Schlesinger, L. B., Kassen, M., Mesa, V. B., & Pinizzotto, A. J. (2010). Ritual and signature in serial sexual homicide. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 38(2), 239-246. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/754051068?accountid=14902 

Human Development Databases: Sociological Abstracts
Fox, J. A., & Levin, J. (1998). Multiple homicide: Patterns of serial and mass murder. Crime and Justice, 23, 407-455. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/61575616?accountid=14902 

Week 7 Assignment

Reflection

I feel that using the Criminal Justice Abstracts database is very easy. I'm sure this is because it's powered by Ebscohost. If I was researching in a different discipline maybe it would be different or more difficult? For the purpose of researching multiple disciplines, using "resources by subject" index is incredibly helpful. You don't have to know what you're looking for! All you have to know is what discipline or subject you need to search in. In contrast, the alphabetical list of research databases can be overwhelming if you don't know which database you need. Without the databases by subject list I would have to spend a heck of a lot of time reading through the entire alphabetical list. I could imagine that would be exhausting. Knowing what you are looking for, where to look for it and how to look for it *without* spending a lot of time is a very valuable skill to have. Searching a research topic within a subject specific database is certainly the way to go!