Chemistry 1A - Research Guide: Web Resources

Google can be a great search tool that can provide you with quality results if you try a few tips: 

• To get more precise results, try putting your search terms in quotes 
• Try using the Google Advanced Search page to narrow your results and filter by site, language, date, and more
• You can try adding the terms site:.edu or site:.gov to limit your results to sites coming from these domains
• Use Google tools such as Google Scholar for scholarly content or Google Images for images
• Always, always evaluate the results of your searches -- See the box below for more information. 

• NIST Chemistry WebBook (National Institute of Standards and Technology)  
  NIST site provides chemical and physical property data on over 40000 compounds. 
  Perform a ‎Chemical Name Search - ‎Chemical Formula Search - ‎CAS registry number.  
   
• CAS - Chemical Abstracts Service A division of the American Chemical Society which provides chemical information and a registry containing information on more than 71 million organic and inorganic substances... 

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Using A.I. to help with your school work

You can use A.I. to speed up your school work, however you must always do the work and deliverables yourself. 

There are a couple of ways that you can use A.I. to speed up your reading:

1. DO the research yourself to find the sources in the Library databases (journal articles, websites, newspapers, and books, etc.).

2. READ the article Abstract or Description in the Library database (this will be the quickest way to filter articles you do not want)

3. ASK your favorite A.I. chatbot (Google's Gemini, OpenAI's ChatGPT, etc.) to summarize your article.

4. READ the A.I. summary (this will allow you to quickly skim the article).

5. If the article still looks interesting and relevant to you, then READ the whole article.

6. USE the article for your purposes.

Wikipedia is a great tool for a summary of a topic. Wikipedia content is constantly revised, and entries vary in quality. Some of the content is excellent, some is questionable.

Many educators frown on the use of Wikipedia. Why?

• Wikipedia content is not necessarily written by subject experts, and may be inadequate or incorrect.
• Articles in Wikipedia may be changed or deleted between viewings.
• For research papers, you need authoritative resources, so it is absolutely necessary to consult other sources.
  
• Anyone can search Google or find a Wikipedia article. To demonstrate academic skill, it is important to go beyond these basic tools.

How can you use Wikipedia in a way that benefits your research process?

• Scan the article to get general information and terms you can use as keywords for further searching.
• Scan the article for references. Sometimes these can lead you to excellent books or articles that you can find at the EVC Library or through our collection of databases.
• Don't reference Wikipedia articles in your paper, unless you are pointing out something specific to Wikipedia.
• As you read Wikipedia articles, you may read notations that call for more evidence, or call attention to bias. These are very constructive principles that apply to your own work. What if Wikipedia editors read your work? Would they mark areas for revision?