Just a quick word here about Galileo vs. the Web.
We, and almost everyone we know, uses Google Search to find information several times a day. We just type in our question or topic and it always comes up with something that seems useful. It's particularly good at short-answer questions. So we assume we'll find something useful every time we ask. However, in regard to websites:
- To get to the information you're looking for, you'll first of all have to wade through half a page of ads that get top billing based on a "match" between your search terms and the advertisers' marketing terms used to get into your list of results. It's hard sometimes not to get tricked into clicking on their sight links.
- Depending on the popularity of the topic, you'll need to be careful of "picking up" unwanted spyware that will track your searches and target you with pop-up ads tailored to your searches.
- They’re not 100% reliable or up to date. Who checks them for accuracy? Is the publisher or sponsor a well-known, reliable organization? Websites rarely have a team of dedicated editors assigned to check the accuracy or reliability of their content, whereas all articles in Galileo go through several editing stages before published .
- The Web is great for quick reference, but it can put the breaks on your formatting you bibliography:
- If you find a website you want to use as a resource for your paper, you'll have to create a citation for it from scratch even if you use online "free" software like Citation Generator or EasyBib.
- Which means you'll have to search for and supply information that's not immediately visible..
- For instance: Does it have an author, publisher, date of publication? Do you cite a section of a website or the website as a whole? Good luck finding a page number.
- Save your time and patience. Galileo is a collection of hundreds of academic databases whose content has been reviewed by scientists, doctors and other professionals AND is preapproved by your instructor.
- It's reliable and provides reliable citations.
- With a little practice, you'll find Galileo can save you a lot of time during the research phase of your paper.
If you need some help getting started, the library staff of GPTC will be glad to show you around Galileo. If that's sometimes not a convenient option for you, you can view a Galileo Tutorial.
Below is a PDF version of the tutorial above that you can download and access as you need.
Galileo Tutorial PDF
