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Information Literacy, Level Two

Glossary of terms

Abstract - A summary of what a particular source is about.

AND - Boolean operator used to combine terms.  See Those pesky ands and ors.

Article - Distinct part of a reference book or journal.  These are typically cited when the rest of the book is not read or referred to.  

Background information - Provides basic information about your topic and how it relates to a discipline or broader course of study. See the Where to begin or Reference sources tab.

Bias - Does the author of a book or journal exclude certain information about the topic.  See Evaluation.

Bibliography - List of things you used to find information for your presentation or paper.  See Citation help.

Boolean logic - Use of AND, OR, NOT to construct a search statement.  See Those pesky ands and ors tab.

Call number -  A distinctive number assigned to each book reflecting its subject classification. See Find books.

Catalog - A database that contains records describing library material.  Primarily used to find books and audiovisual materials.  See Find books.

Citation - Form of writing down information about the material you used for a presentation or paper so that someone else can find those sources.  See Citation help.

Database - A computer program that contains descriptions of resources to complete a paper.  May be specialized or general.  May include the full text of the items described or it may not.   See the the tab for the type of material that you are looking for to find a database that would contain that material.  Reference sources and articles are two examples of this.

Dewey Decimal Classification System - System to organize books by subject.  See Find books.

ebook - Book read on the computer.  See Find books.

Facet - Element added to the description of an item that makes that item searchable by type or class.  Patient handout, NAICS number, etc.  See Find articles tab

Information timeline or information cycle - The amount of time it takes for information to appear in a particular type of source.  See Find articles tab.

Intended audience - Who the author is writing his or her book or article for.  See Evaluate information tab.

Journal - Published periodically for scholars within a field to communicate new information.  Contains articles.  See Scholarly vs. popular tab.

Keyword Term that conveys the principle concept of your topic.  See How to identify topic and keywords tab.

Limiter - A limiter is a way to reduce an existing set of search results.  Includes things like full text, date range, etc.

Magazine - Published periodically for the general public to provide background information.  Contains articles.  See scholarly vs. popular tab.

Mind map - Way to find paper topics and/or keywords for that topic within a discipline or broader course of study.  See How to Identify topic and keywords tab.

Nesting - Use of parentheses to force the computer to process the logic of a search in a certain way.  See Those pesky ands and ors tab.

NOT - Boolean term used to exclude a term from a search.  See Those pesky ands and ors tab.

OR - Boolean operator used to combine several equivalent terms.  See Those Pesky ands and ors tab.

Peer reviewed - Articles submitted to a journal are reviewed by a panel of peers (or experts) within the field to see if they are correct and of sufficient merit to publish in the journal.  See scholarly vs. popular tab.

Plagiarism - Presenting other people's words or ideas as though they were your own.  See Citation help tab.

Point of view - does the author of a book or journal expect a certain outcome when he or she is doing his or her research.  See Evaluation tab.

Popular articles - Article written by the author summarizing existing knowledge for the general public.  See Scholarly vs. public tab.

Reference sources - See reference sources tab.

Scholarly articles - articles written by the author describing research that he has conducted and reporting his findings to the academic community.  See Scholarly vs. popular tab.

Subject terms - Uniform vocabulary assigned by the database producer to describe what a book or article is about.  See Subject terms tab.

Truncation - Using the asterisk symbol to include multiple forms of a word in a search.  See Those pesky and and ors tab.