The Hits and Misses of Favorite Resources
Resource |
Pros |
Cons |
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- Fast
- Easy
- Free
- Good for finding information on topics about which there may not be many other articles
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- No two searches produce the same results
- Can't sort results by date to see newest pages first
- Google algorithm is a secret -- we don't know how pages are ranked
- Web page authors can manipulate Google algorithm so that their pages are ranked higher
- Ads and sponsored pages show up in results
- Results mix trustworthy and biased content
|
|
- Fast
- Easy
- Free
- Get it @ Duke links connect you to what is available through Duke library subscriptions
- Shows times cited, citing papers
- Advanced options available for searching by subject, authors or journals
- Good for finding articles about specific instruments or questionnaires
|
- No way to know what journals and articles are included
- Doesn't include articles without abstracts
- May not include the newest articles from PubMed
- Can't sort results by date
- No way to search using subject headings, clinical queries, study type or other limits
|
|
- Fast
- Easy
- Free
- Good source for background information when you don't know anything about a topic
- Covers the "long tail"
- Becoming less bieased: seeks more references, locks hot topics, works to verify author credentials
- The ability for anyone to edit most topics means that errors can get corrected quickly
|
- The author of an entry is is not easily determined
- Generally not well referenced
- Not peer reviewed
- Articles not stable: content can change on an hourly basis
- Hard to tell if an entry is evidence-based
|
|
- Fast
- Easy
- Good source for background information on a topic
- Indexes in topic reviews make it easy to jump to a specific section
|
- Expensive and proprietary
- Topic reviews may not be updated recently
- Although evidence-based, it is also largely expert opinion
- Doesn't have topic reviews on every subject
|
|
- Free
- Connects to the full text of original research easily
- Sophisticated tools for searching, i.e., automatic mapping to subject headings, limits, clinical queries, filter tabs
- Customization features allow you to save searches and citations, set filters, etc.
- Explicitly states what journals are included
- Multiple ways to do things can make it easy to find a way that works for you
|
- Requires training for most efficient and effective use
- Platform can be a bit unstable sometimes
- Multiple ways to do things can make it complicated to remember how to do things
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