Starting your haunt of treasures

The word ‘library’ is derived from Latin ‘liber’, which means "book".

A primary function of a library is to be an organized storehouse of information published throughout time. As well as finding very current information, you can also find books that are no longer published and older issues of magazines.

Items are organized so you can find all the sources on a topic. For example, when you search for a book in the library catalogue you will get a call number. The books shelved near the same call number will cover a similar topic. Librarians select books, magazines, journals, databases, and Web sites. The library collects sources considered reliable, historically relevant, and valuable.

Libraries have large collections of information on a variety of carefully

selected and organized topics. The key idea when using the library is that you are

getting quality over quantity. Print or electronic library resources are the best sources to use when starting your research. The type of information you need will change depending on the question you are trying to answer.

Magazines publish articles on topics of popular interest and

current events. The articles are written by journalists and are for

the general public. You can find print magazines at newsstands and in libraries.

Journal articles are written by scholars in an academic or professional field. An editorial board reviews articles to decide whether they should be published. Journal articles may cover very specific topics or narrow fields of research.

Newspapers provide articles each day about current events and are a good source for local information. Newspapers, like journals and magazines, are called "periodicals" because they are published regularly, or periodically.

Books cover virtually any topic, fact or fiction. For research purposes, you will probably be looking for books that synthesize all the information on one topic.

 

Encyclopedias contain factual articles on many subjects. There are two types of encyclopedias - general and subject. General encyclopedias provide overviews on a wide variety of topics. Subject encyclopedias contain entries focusing on one field of study.

The Web allows you to access information on the Internet through a browser. One of the main features of the Web is the ability to link quickly to other related information. Every day more and more electronic books, encyclopedias and periodicals are available on the Web.

(Adapted from http://ulibnet.mtsu.edu.html)

Comprehension check

1. Answer the questions.

a) What is the main purpose of a library?

b) How can a call number help you find a book you need?

c) Why are library sources of information considered credible?

 

2. Match the sources of information with the appropriate tips. Discuss which key words helped you to do the task.

Sources:

1 a magazine	5 a journal
2.a book D	6 a newspaper
3 an encyclopedia	7 the Web
4 a catalogue	8 an article index

 

Tips:

(A)

to find current information about international, national and local events

to find editorials, commentaries, expert or popular opinions

(B)

to find information or opinions about popular culture

to find up-to-date information about current events

to find general articles written for people who are not necessarily specialists in the topic area

(C)

when doing scholarly research

to find out what has been studied on your topic

to find bibliographies that point to other relevant research

 

(D)

when looking for a lot of information on a topic

to put your topic in context with other important issues

to find historical information

to find summaries of research to support an argument

(E)

to find current information

to link to information provided by the library over the Internet

to find information about companies

to find information from all levels of government - federal to local

to find both expert and popular opinions

(F)

when looking for background information on a topic

when trying to find key ideas, important dates or concepts

(G)

when you want to find articles on your topic in magazines, journals or newspapers

(H)

to find out sources of information the library owns on your topic

to find where a specific item is located in the library

 

Writing

 

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Get Real

Go online. Subscribe to any free magazine or journal. Report back the results of the subscription. Give reasons for your choice of the periodical.

 

Listening

1. You are going to listen to a librarian explaining students the difference between various types of periodicals. Listen to the lecture and complete the chart.

Type of Source Popular Magazines Scholarly Journals Examples __________________, New York Times, _______________, Discover, ________________, _________________ ________________, ___________________ Journal of American Mathematical Society, ________________,   Audience for ______________ and broad audience for, _____________, scholars, _____________   Language understood by _______________________ ______________________   ______________________ ______________________ Content research as __________, feature stories, ____________, ______________________ ______________________ _______________, experimentation, _________ and in-depth_____________, _____________, references, __________________   Appearance __________________, in a ______________ format, highly visual, a lot of __________________, colour, ______________, ___________ and drawings ____________, charts, a few ____________, _____________________   Authors a member of the editorial staff _______________, freelance _____________   ____________________ ____________________     Publishers and sponsors published by _____________ enterprises, _____________, sometimes _____________________   sponsored by ______________________ _____________________

 

Discuss

Ø What new information have you got from the lecture on periodicals?

Ø How can you apply this new information to your studies and life in general?

Ø Do you think you need any additional information about library sources?

Focus on language

1. Read these sentences. Do they have active or passive verbs?

§ Magazines and journals are called periodicals because they are published on a regular or "periodic" basis.

§ Libraries are able to purchase one copy which can be shared by many people.

§ The articles in this type of periodicals may be written by a member of the editorial staff, a scholar or a freelance writer, not a subject expert.

 

Passive Structures Passive verbs are common when we are thinking about what is done to the person or thing that we are interested in, not about what he/she/it does.   § Passives are best in formal style. Actives are more informal. e.g.: English is widely-spoken all over the world. § The Passive structures are formed with the verb to be, in the correct tense, and the past participle of the main verb. § Use by… only if it is necessary to say who does/did the action.

 

2. Rewrite the sentences in the passive.

a) Librarians select books, magazines, journals, databases, and Web sites.

b) The library collects sources considered reliable, historically relevant, and

valuable.

c) Magazines publish articles on topics of popular interest and current events.

d) They are studying chemical and biochemical phenomena that occur in natural processes.

e) Who are they going to invite for the ceremony?

f) Scientists have studied a great number of harmful effects of modern civilization on the environment.

g) You can find a lot of useful information about our university and the degree

courses in this prospectus.

h) My tutor advised me to read this book from cover to cover.

 

Speaking

1. Look at the abstract of the article and answer the questions below.

“DESINING A KNOWLEDGE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR ARITHMETIC CONCEPTS”

Abstract – A knowledge-based learning environment, called ENIGMA, has been developed. This system is centred on an arithmetic game and is intended at being used in teaching arithmetic in primary /secondary school level (pupils from 9 to 12). The underlying pedagogical choices of the system are analysed and the corresponding technical solutions which have been adopted are illustrated.

a) What kind of information about the article is presented?

b) How long is it?

c) Does it follow any pattern?

d) What grammar tenses and voice are used?

e) What is the purpose of an abstract?

 

Study help Abstract is a brief summary of a journal article or other library resource that classifies, evaluates, or describes the important points of the content Abstracts can save you time by helping you identify the best articles on your topic.

f) Who would be interested in this article?

g) How often do you read abstracts? Do you find them helpful?

h) In what other cases are abstracts often used?

i) How can readers benefit from reading an abstract?

 

Writing

Search the Internet or popular science magazines to find an interesting article. Write an abstract to the article using the clichés from the Functional language box.

Functional language: Abstract writing
The article	was written by …
was presented at …
was published in …
comes from …
	reports on …
discusses …
The author	describes …
The article	informs on/about …
	considers the problem of …
The information presented in the …	is very interesting because …
The problem	is widely-discussed in the press because …
is the most up-to-date/urgent as it …
	is/can be recommended	to a wide range of readers.
The article
	to specialists in ….

 

With a partner exchange and check each other’s abstracts.

 

In the Realm of Science

1. Some letters of the Greek alphabet are widely used in many natural sciences especially in mathematics. Learn how to read some of them.

Capital and small	Name	English equivalent	Russian
A α	a [′ælfə]	a	альфа
B β	beta [′bi:tə]/[′beitə]	b	бета
Γ γ	gamma [′gæmə]	g	гамма
Δ δ	delta [′deltə]	d	дельта
Λ λ	lambda [′læmbdə]	l	лямбда
Μ μ	mu [′mju]	m	ми/мю
Ξ ξ	xi [′ksai]	n	кси
Π π	pi [′pai]	p	пи
Σ σ	sigma [′sigmə]	s	сигма
Ώ ω	omega [′oυmigə]	o	омега

What other letters from the Greek alphabet are used in your subject area?

2. Many English words and word parts can be traced back to the Greek language. The table below lists some common Greek roots.

Greek root	Basic meaning	Example words
-anthrop-	human	misanthrope, philanthropy, anthropomorphic
-chron-	time	anachronism, chronic, chronicle, synchronize, chronometer
-dem-	people	democracy, demography, demagogue, endemic, pandemic
-morph-	form	amorphous, metamorphic, morphology
-path-	feeling, suffering	empathy, sympathy, apathy, apathetic, psychopathic
-pedo-, -ped-	child, children	pediatrician, pedagogue
-philo-, -phil-	having a strong affinity or love for	philanthropy, philharmonic, philosophy
-phon-	sound	polyphonic, cacophony, phonetics

 

 

Unit 2 Progress Monitoring In this unit you have worked on the following vocabulary related to the topic “Information search”   an issue of a magazine/journal   to cite a source   to publish an article/etc   to update resources   to collect reliable/historically relevant/valuable sources   to contain audio-visual/multimedia materials/computer databases   print or electronic magazines/books, etc.   popular or scholarly sources or periodicals   a large collection of periodicals   to be available for the public   to subscribe to a magazine/journal, etc.   the contents of a book/magazine   to cover specific topics/narrow fields of research   to provide overviews on a wide variety of topics     Tick (V) the points you are confident about and cross (X) the ones you need to revise.

 

 

Unit 3 Review

 

1. Put these instructions for truncating back a URL in the correct sequence.

a) Stop when you reach the first single / which is preceded by the domain name

portion.

b) This is the page's server or "publisher."

c) In the top Location Box, delete the end characters of the URL stopping just

before each /.

d) Press enter to see if you can see more about the author or the origins/nature

of the site providing the page.

e) Continue this process, one slash (/) at a time.

 

2. Rewrite the sentences passive.

a) Wilhelm Schickard made the first known adding machine.

b) MIT’s laboratories carry out a great deal of research.

c) The fact that biological sciences are more popular with school leavers than

computer science surprised me.

d) You should know the procedure of the experiment before you start doing it.

e) The NASA specialists are planning to launch a space platform to Jupiter.

f) The BBC Company has released a new documentary series about space

research.

 

3. Spot the odd one out.

a) library internet www database

b) journal magazine periodicals newspaper

 

4. Explain the difference between these pairs.

journal - magazine

biography - autobiography

author - publisher

paper - article

 

5. Divide into 5 teams. Each team completes word webs for the words information (adjectives), information (verbs), book (adjectives), knowledge (adjectives), knowledge (verbs) using its own colour marker. Mind maps are rotated every 1 minute, then the results are checked in class. The team that works out the more phrases is the winner.

 

6. Read these sayings. Comment on the one you like most.

Ø “Know where to find the information and how to use it – That’s the secret of success.” Albert Einstain

Ø “Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgment, the manner in which information is collected and used” Dr. Carl Sagan quotes

Ø “We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge.” Kofy Annan

Ø A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.” Shelby Foote

 

7.

Do you know … yes no how to use Brainboost search engine?     how to conduct field search?     what can save you time when you are searching for necessary sources?     where to look for information on popular science topics?     how to quickly check the authority of the site?     how to check the reliability/accuracy of the page?     what kind of information you need to find a particular book in a library catalogue?     how to differentiate information Web page from an advocacy one?

Complete this questionnaire for yourself. Then divide into groups and take turns to explain how to perform each of these actions.

 

 

Each one teach one

Work with a partner. Hold a competition and brainstorm about 10 terms to do with the library search. Compare the lists. Cross out the terms that are on the both lists. Explain the meaning of the rest of the terms.

 

 

 

“The most remarkable discovery ever made by scientists was science itself”

Jacob Bronowsky

 

 

Learning Objectives

 

The objectives of this module are:

· to express opinions in arguments and discussions

· to use special linking words and expressions for coherency in writing and speaking

· to use different speech patterns and collocations to avoid repetition

· to talk about scientific discoveries and inventions

· to distinguish international words from ‘false friends’ words

· to revisit the Past Tenses