The Information Cycle is the progression of media coverage of a specific newsworthy event. Understanding the information cycle will help you to better know what information is available on your topic and better evaluate information sources covering that topic. Information is often published following this pattern:
Information can be found on television, social media, and the web. This information is quick and lacks detail, but is initially updated. It covers the who, what, why, when, and where of the event and is intended for a general audience. It is written by bloggers, social media participants, and journalists.
Explanations and timelines of the event begin to appear in professionally published newspapers. Written by journalists and intended for a general audience, it begins to include more factual information and may include statistics, quotes, photographs, and editorial coverage
Long-form stories in popular magazines and news magazines begin to discuss the impact on society, culture, and public policy. These articles are written by a variety of people, including journalists and essayists, and often include commentary provided by scholars and experts in the field being discussed. These articles are aimed at a general audience or specific non-professional groups but include more detailed analysis, interviews, and various perspectives.
Scholars, researchers, and professionals provide focused, detailed analysis and theoretical, empirical research. This information has been reviewed by other scholars, researchers, and professionals to ensure the credibility and accuracy of the results. The information is intended for scholars, researchers, and university students.
In-depth coverage can be found in books, which can range from an in-depth analysis written by scholars to popular books written by journalists. Information also begins to appear in reference books to provide facts, overviews, and summaries of the event. Additionally, government reports begin to be released, which include information written by government panels, organizations, and committees and are focused on public policy, legislation, and statistical analysis.
| Consider the... | Scholarly Publications are... | Trade Publications are... | Popular Publications are... |
|---|---|---|---|
| Length of Articles |
Lengthy, often more than 10 pages, and include areas such as abstracts, methods, results, and discussions. |
Short, fewer than 10 pages, and often lacking structural subsections. | Short, fewer than 10 pages, and lack structural subsections. |
| Audience | Written for academics or professionals with advanced language. | Written for people in specific trades, industries, or professions, as well as interested non-specialists. | Written for the general public in non-specialized language. |
| Authority & Expertise | Written by academics, specialists, or researchers in the field. | Written by industry professionals, sometimes journalists with subject expertise; author credentials are usually provided. | Written by journalists or professional writers. |
| Bibliography | Well researched and includes information about their sources in an area called References, Works Cited, or Footnotes so a reader can consult the material that the author used. | References may be provided in a brief bibliography, but are not required. | Sometimes researched, but sources are seldom included with the article. A good editor will check the writer's sources. |
| Frequency | Published monthly, quarterly, or yearly. | Published weekly or monthly. | Published daily, weekly, or monthly. |
| Inclusions | Not decorated with images and only have specialized advertising if any is included. They will also include reviews of the literature, charts, data, and tables along with descriptions of how their research was conducted. | Articles may include decorative photographs and graphic layouts similar to popular publications. They may include advertisements for products, but they will typically be relevant to that field or industry. | Print versions may be full of decorative photographs, illustrations, and text. They also include a lot of product advertisements. |
| Subjects | Confined to a single, specific aspect of a subject area such as music theory, European political science, film studies, language development, or stem cell research. | Confined to a particular field or industry with the intent to provide practical information about current news, trends, and products. | Often inclusive of many subjects, such as in Time, People, and Newsweek, or focused on a single subject with the intention of entertaining such as in Wired or Sports Illustrated. |
| Vocabulary | Written with technical or specialized vocabulary unique to a subject area. | Written with specialized terminology or jargon of the field, but not as technical as a scholarly publication. | Written in conventional or conversational language, appropriate for most readers |
| Publication Process | Sent to experts in the subject who review the article to evaluate credibility and accuracy before being published. This process is known as "peer-review". | Articles are evaluated by editorial staff who may be subject experts, but articles are not peer-reviewed. | Sent to an editor who may know nothing of the topic. The editor might use a fact-checker, who also may not be familiar with the topic, to verify some information. |
While it may look different in various databases, most provide you with the ability to set forth a series of rules about what you want to search within. Here are some common types of limiters along with what they do:
Library databases typically search a set of published works, but that doesn't mean those are always the types of publications you want, need, or are allowed to use. You can use the Source Type limiters to tell the database that you only want items from certain types of sources.
In the same way that IMDB.com tells you about a movie but doesn't give you access to the movie itself, the databases might have information to tell you about an item but not access to the item itself. You can tell the database that you only want items that you can access the item itself from that database by clicking on the "full text" limiter.
In some disciplines and for some topics it is important to use current information. You can tell the database to only give you results from a certain time period by limiting to a publication date range.
The subject limiter area is where you will find what tags are associated with the articles in your search results. Because these tags designate an article as being about that topic (rather than just mentioning the word) you can use these tags to tell the database that you only want articles tagged as being about that topic.
Searches for places where both keywords appear together. This is the default for all databases, so you don't really need to type the word.
Searches for either of the keywords. They might be together or they might not.
Searches for places where the first keyword appears without the second.
Be careful when using NOT in your keyword search; this can sometimes cause good items to be excluded from your results.
The books on our shelves are arranged using the Library of Congress Classification system. Each book in the library has a unique “call number”, which is a combination of letters and numbers that are used to place books in alphabetical and numerical order. When you find a book in our online catalog, you can use the call number to find the book. The call number is placed on the lower part of the spine of the book.
In our catalog, the call numbers are displayed as a single line, but the spine label displays the call number as 3 to 5 lines. The call number is always read from left to right, then from top to bottom (when applicable).
Here are a few basic principles to help you understand how to use the call number to find a book on the shelf:
| Order on Shelf | First | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Line | H61 | H61 | H62 | H62.3 | H62.5 | HA17 |
| Second Line (post-decimal) | .S4475 | .S74 | .K37 | .C547 | .U5 N354 | .V64 |
| Last Line (Year) | 2010 | 2015 | 2019 | 2018 | 2010 | 2016 |
