To Google or not to Google - wise words from Wynton

Wynton Heading may be an Academic Librarian who knows his onions, but he is cautious about Googling his onions.

Using databases, the perils of relying too heavily on Google for research and some rather excellent nooks and crannies of the library website were discussed with aplomb by Wynton at the inaugural Writing in the Sciences workshop for this year, held last Friday.

For more than 15 years, Wynton has been up-close-and-personal with the databases and information systems at the University of South Australia as the intrepid Academic Librarian.

Wynton and the other Academic Librarians are required to keep tabs on the 20,000 electronic journals held at Mawson Lakes for Science and Engineering. It is important to note, that the library on this campus is privileged for its vast store of electronic journals, linking student and academic alike to a vast pool of cutting edge scientific research and debate.

Firstly Wynton took yours truly and a group of 8 Science writers through some information fundamentals. The starting blocks for research include understanding the principles of sources:

• primary (research data)



• secondary (books, journals, reports etc)



• tertiary (encyclopedias and reviews).

Once these are acknowledged as legitimate sources for finding information, he focused on the second and most often used area - the secondary source. Research data can be found published in a vast array of firstly books, secondly standards and patents and thirdly Journal articles.

Google was a 'contentious issue' for Wynton, when asked if there was a trend towards greater reliance on the mega-search engine Google Scholar - a recent addition to the Library web pages.

Wynton said 'Google is fine, but don't rely on it as your only source for research'.

'The capability of Google grows with each year but you still need to carefully evaluate the source of your information to make sure that it is credible', he said. For example, while Google Scholar provides some up-to-date links to journal articles both on the World Wide Web and in the UniSA library, it is difficult to get a full spectrum of articles. The best approach is to use a combination of Google Scholar and other library databases such as IEEE Explore.

Wynton's 'best pics and tips' for Science writers include:

• To scour the bibliographies in books for relevant journal articles


• McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of Science and Technology


• The Libraries Australia indexes (a five star rating, from Wynton)


• Emerald (mostly for business students but contains the creme de la creme of journal articles.


• IEEE Explore (which is absolutely huge)

Wynton's final musing was that 'information' is an over-used term and it is appropriate that it is linked with words like 'overload' and 'glut'. He explained that science writers should never reject anything, but should avoid relying on one area of search too much.

Friday, August 13: MIND MAPPING. This WILL change your approach to writing. REGISTER NOW!