The Technology Trap

Cars are fabulous tools, aren't they? You get in one and it will take you places you would never dream of walking to...

But does the car do this all by itself? Once you turn it on, can you just leave it to its own devices and expect to end up where you want to go? You don't actually have to know the road rules, do you? Can't the car take care of that by itself? What if you press the cruise control button? Does that mean you can make yourself a cup of coffee and expect the car to take care of the driving?

Not in this decade. I can't vouch for the advances in the transport industry that may come in the rest of this century, but for the time being you still need to drive the car in order to get anywhere (and not crash and burn).

Yet, strangely, when it comes to computers, a lot of people are happy to let the technology do the driving. This isn't completely unusual, as hardware and software designers go out of their way to make things "user friendly", which is more or less code for "does most things without user interference... er... input".

Basically, most designers assume most people are hopeless when it comes to technology, and the more the tools can do by themselves, the more likely people are to use them (after all, it requires less brain power on the users' behalf). So computer programs do a lot of things without you telling them to.

This can create a number of problems:

It's easy to assume that what the tool does on its own is all it does, when it might have a wide variety of uses and applications that need your input.

You can fall into the habit of trusting the machine to know what it's doing, but computers can't make value judgements (it's all maths to them) and it is very easy for them to get off track.

While they can't make value judgements, they can make assumptions. Computer programs also like to believe they know what they're doing - and sometimes they'll over-ride what you want them to do, assuming they "know better".

For an example, the grammar and spell checkers on your word processing program can pick up many genuine errors, but they also flag anything they don't recognise or understand... and they also miss things that they haven't been programmed to notice. Since any language other than maths is usually too fluid for computers to completely understand, that means a lot of things are marked as being wrong when they might not be, or not marked at all when they should be. So, like a car, you should use a spell checker, but not trust it to find its way on its own. You still need to pay attention to your own words in order to guide the tool so you can make sure the end product says what you want it to say.

It's the same with bibliographic software and other programs. You need to know what you are doing so you can make sure the tool is doing what you want it to. Don't just hit the cruise control button and assume it will all work out.

What is the Technology Trap?

It's when you rely on the technology instead of learning the ins-and-outs of things for yourself. It's when you never learn how something works when the computer isn't doing it for you, so that you can stay in control of what the computer is doing.

If you don't know how to write a bibliography, how will you know if the bibliographic software is doing it correctly? What would happen if there was a problem with your computer and you couldn't use the tool? Would you be able to do it manually?

If you don't know the difference between "too" and "to", how will you notice if you've used the wrong one - especially if the spell-checker doesn't pick it up?

Tools are great, and they should be used - but you should always be in the driver's seat, paying attention to what they're doing and guiding them. Technology is no replacement for knowing what you're doing.

Bibliographic Software

What is Bibliographic Software?

Bibliographic Software (also known as Reference Management Software and Citation Software) is a computer program that allows you to generate bibliographies. The "big one" that most universities use and offer to their staff and students is Endnote, but there are others. This wikipedia page offers a comparison of different types of Bibliographic Software. BiblioScape, which has favourable reviews from a variety of sources, also has a cut-down freeware version of its Citation Software called BilbioExpress

Essentially, you input all of the relevant bibliographical information about your book/article/webpage (such as: author, publisher, date, etc), and the software will help you arrange that information in a variety of ways. Most programs will also allow you to make notes on each entry, file them in "libraries". Many also offer the ability to link to a file or url so that you can

The programs are very useful tools that can enhance your research in a number of ways, such as:

They help you keep track of your sources - If you make a note of every book or article you come across in your research that you thought was particularly interesting or relevant, then you have a better chance of finding it again later. Especially if you add notes such as quotes that caught your attention or "talks about problems with hatcheries" to jog your memory.

They help you stay "in style" - Most of the good programs are programmed with the main citation styles (APA, MLA, Harvard, etc), and the really good ones will also have "house styles" for some of the major journals. This means you don't have to track down the style guide to makes sure your citations are structured correctly - the program will do it for you.

They help you create lists - Say you want to find all of the references you have that were published in the USA, or you merely want to find all of the sources for which you have PDF copies. A good Bibliographic Software program will let you run special searches that can help you create different lists for different purposes.

They can help you sort out your recipes - Okay, this one isn't related to research, but it does help illustrate the fact that a good Bibliographic Software program has multiple uses. Keep a list of all of your favourite recipes, what books they're in and what ingredients they use. Then, the next time you can't quite remember where that great recipe for asparagus soup is, you can do a quick search and track it down.

However, as much as I love and praise Bibliographic Software, it can be very easy to fall into the "Technology Trap" with these programs. Make sure you read the forthcoming entry on the Technology Trap, and remember to stay in the driver's seat.

A couple of Search Engines

While it may seem as if the entire world is covered by Google, and therefore one need not look elsewhere, Google is not the be-all and end-all of search engines, and anyone serious about finding good information on the Web should have at least two decent search engines in their bag of tricks.

Why do you need more than one search engine? Because of maths.

You see, no matter how smart and pretty computers may appear, they can still really only do one thing well: count. They're still giant calculators at heart. In order to "think" about web pages, they have to give every factor involved (the words in your search, how often they turn up on a page, where they turn up on the page) a numerical value. They then use a mathematical formula, or algorithm, to rank the pages in a list. Different search engines use different algorithms, which means you get different results.

Google and Yahoo! are both general search engines. Their algorithms are designed to find the most "popular" websites by canvassing all of the sites they know about, picking the ones with the most links pointing to them and ranking them according to factors like commercial relevance. They are the K-marts and Targets of search engines. By all means, use them - you'll probably find something that's just what you're looking for, but remember to shop around in the specialty stores as well.

A personal favourite of mine has always been Ask. Well, technically, it hasn't 'always' been Ask. It used to be about three different search engines, Hotbot, Teoma and Ask Jeeves, which were all available separately and via the Hotbot home page. Hotbot sold out to Google then curled up and died, while Teoma and Ask Jeeves merged into Ask.

Ask combines the best features of both search engines, using the Teoma algorithm and Ask Jeeve's ability to recognise questions. Where Google's algorithm goes for the most popular web sites across the board, Ask attaches a few more numbers to the web sites in it's database and looks for the sites which are most popular amongst their peers.

In addition, Ask also offers three sets of results. There's the normal "hit list" of links to web pages, and two areas where they offer search suggestions based on tallied results of other, similar questions: "Narrow Your Search" and "Expand Your Search". Depending on what you search for, you'll also see examples from the Images search in another part of the screen.

Another search engine I have discovered very recently is Vivisimo (which also seems to be Clusty - I'm not entirely sure what the exact relationship is between these two). Vivisimo/Clusty subdivides it's results and groups (clusters) them together based on common content, which makes it much easier to sort through the results and hone in on those which seem most relevant. I spent several hours looking for information through several other search engines which I managed to find in minutes using Vivisimo, so it's definitely worth adding to the toolbox.

Have a play with them and get a feel for the ways they complement each other. Try putting the same search terms (or question) into each, and see what comes up. And remember to look beyond the first ten results - you can often find just what you're looking for on page 5.