Environmental Sciences

Assignment Details

Pick a topic:

• Does eDNA metabarcoding provide comparable estimates of salmonid species richness and relative abundance to those derived from electrofishing surveys in small- to medium-sized streams? 

• What are the key environmental impacts of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs)?

• What are the major environmental impacts of large-scale data centres?

• What does recent research reveal about the emergence, spread, and ecological impacts of new (>2020) invasive species in Alberta?

Task 1

• Use MRU LibrarySearch or Google Scholar to locate 3 sources related to your topic.

• Identify keywords and synonyms for your chosen topic.

• Create references for the sources you have found using APA 7 style.

• Evaluate the 3 sources.

Task 2

• Now, use a GenAI tool to try to locate 3 sources related to your topic.

  • You can pick OpenAI’s ChatGPT or a more specific research-based one from the “Discovery Tools” section (pp. 10-19) of this document.

  • NOTE: Some of these tools in that document require that you create an account even to use the free version. If you don't want to create an account, a few from the Discovery Tools list that don't require account creation to search freely are: Semantic Scholar, Perplexity, Keenious, and Ask R Discovery.

• Create references for the items you have found using APA 7 style.

• Evaluate the 3 sources.

Task 3

• Find 2 additional academic journal articles on your topic using MRU LibrarySearch, Google Scholar, or a GenAI tool (whichever you prefer).

• Import the 2 articles plus your original 3 articles into your Mendeley library. Get into groups of 3-4 students working on the same topic. Create a shared Mendeley group and import all of the articles into the shared group (15-20 articles total).     

• Make sure the information (author, title, journal, etc.) about each article is accurate. Copy all of the articles as formatted citations and paste them as a reference list at the end of this document. 

Task 4

• As a group, discuss your experience with search tools, GenAI tools, and Mendeley. Write an individual reflection

  • Did you prefer using LibrarySearch, Google Scholar, a specific GenAI tool, or some combination of all of these? Please explain your reasoning.

  • Did you find different sources using different research tools?

  • Did the sources that you found using GenAI differ from your LibrarySearch/Google Scholar sources in notable ways? For example, were the sources as current or as scholarly?

  • How might a citation management tool like Mendeley help you in future assignments or in your career?

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources

A scholarly publication contains articles written by experts in a particular field. The primary audience of these articles is other experts.

Many of these publications are also referred to as "peer-reviewed," academic, or "refereed." They all mean essentially the same thing and refer to the editorial and publication process in which scholars in the same field review the research and findings before the article is published.

Some Helpful Questions for Identifying a Scholarly/Academic Article

1. What are the author’s credentials? Was it written by an expert?

2. Was it published in a journal (is there a DOI?)? (If you are not sure if a source is a journal article, you can enter the title of the publication into Ulrichs Web to check.)

3. Does it use academic or more technical language?

4. Does it includes a reference list of sources that it is citing?

5. How long is it? (Scholarly articles are typically longer than popular or news articles.)

6. Does it have a "Received" and "Accepted" date on it?

7. Is it an actual article? (Sometimes other types of content are included in scholarly publications, such as editorials/opinion pieces and book reviews. Make sure you are looking at an article.)

 Add / Reorder 

Conducting Academic Research With LibrarySearch 

LibrarySearch is MRU Library's one-stop search interface/catalogue that brings together resources across format, time, and subject. 

We have millions of e-resources and 221,000 physical resources in our collection, and LibrarySearch searches across those.

Things to remember when using LibrarySearch:

1. Sign in to save searches, items, and to request materials.

2. Use the pin icon to save books and articles to your Favorites for future reference.

3. Use the filters on the right. You will use Availability, Resource Type, and Date filters most often. Filter settings can be "locked in" so that you don't have to reapply them to every search that you make.

4. Some items may not be available, however, you can request unavailable items using what is called interlibrary loan.

5. When viewing an item record, scroll down to the Get it (for hardcopy/physical items) or Access options (for electronic items) section to get access to the item.

Helpful Search Operators to Use in LibrarySearch

You can use what are called search operators to search in a way to combine or omit different terms by telling the search engine exactly what you want and this can help you save some time (and frustration!)

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "zebra mussels"

  • "small modular nuclear reactors"

• Use AND to combine search terms (LibrarySearch automatically creates an AND when you write terms one after another, but it can be good practice to use an AND to help you understand the searches that you build) (AND narrows your search):

  • "zebra mussels" AND Alberta

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms (OR broadens your search):

  • "zebra mussels" OR "quagga mussels"

• Use wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • ethic* (in this example, the search ethic* will search for records that contain strings such as ethics, ethical, and ethically)

Conducting Academic Research With Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is another great way to find high quality resources.

Besides providing links to resources in MRU databases, Google Scholar links to online repositories that contain articles the author has been allowed to upload.  Academia.edu and ResearchGate are among the repositories searched by Google Scholar.

By clicking on the Settings icon, you can select library links to show library access for up to 5 libraries (type in Mount Royal and click on save).  If you are logged into MRU library, links should automatically populate if you are running a Google search in another window. 

Google Scholar has a nifty citation chaining function. The Cited by function will forward you to indexed scholarly material that has cited a resource that you may be interested in. The Related articles link will direct you to similar articles that may have the same metadata or keywords. 

Helpful Search Operators to Use in Google Scholar

Google Scholar's Advanced Search is found by clicking the menu icon in the top left.

You can also add search operators to Google Scholar searches to build your own custom advanced searches in similar ways to LibrarySearch:

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "climate change"

• Avoid using AND to combine search terms with Google Scholar, as the search engine automatically creates ANDs between concepts and sometimes adding an additional AND can confuse the search syntax.

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms:

  • "climate change" OR "global warming"

• Use wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • ethic* (in this example, the search ethic* will search for records that contain strings such as ethics, ethical, and ethically)

Government Reports

You can use other search tools to find government reports on your topic. These can be useful for getting recent information on your topic or learn about government regulations and programs related to your topic.

Be careful, not all government reports will provide in-depth information on your topic. Some are just meant to provide basic information to the public.

Check out the following collections:

Canada Commons - Government: includes all types of government documents, including scientific and technical reports from government departments like Environment and Climate Change Canada

Government of Canada Publications: the official repository of publications produced by the federal government and its departments and agencies. It contains everything from pamphlets to scientific reports.

Alberta Open Publications: contains a wide range of reports and documents from Alberta government departments

When you are searching for government reports, keep your searches simple to start.

"small modular nuclear reactors"

If you get too many results, using additional terms, combining with AND

"small modular nuclear reactors" AND environment

AI as a Research Tool

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is a hot topic these days that is having an impact on many areas of cultural life, education, and the economy.

Lots of people in education (including myself) are still getting their heads around generative AI, and this is made difficult by how quickly the technology changes and how little non-experts understand about it. It is incredibly complex, blackboxed technology.

Shortly after the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT, many people treated it like a search engine with some unfortunate consequences. Most notable was the example of lawyers using it to generate (non-existent) legal citations.

In the years since ChatGPT's release, however, there are now a variety of AI-powered research tools competing on the market, and even ChatGPT has become (somewhat) better at providing real sources now that it has live access to the internet.

That said, be sure to scrutinize any source(s) that GenAI provides you with on a topic. This is because, at this point, it is prone to error: what some have called "hallucination" 

If generative AI provides you with a source:

(1) make sure that the source actually exists, and, if it does exist;

(2) make sure that the source actually contains the information that generative AI has attributed to it.

GenAI may also be useful as a brainstorming partner early on in your exploration of a topic similar to how you might browse a Wikipedia article on a subject to get a quick grasp of it in the early stages of your research.

Figure 1

Peter Steiner's Famous 1993 New Yorker Cartoon Illustrating an Issue Central to Information Evaluation

Note. From "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" [Cartoon], by P. Steiner, 1993, Wikimedia (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg).

Evaluating Information

It is good to find lots of search results, but, in order to use information skilfully, you need to know how to evaluate that information to determine whether a specific resource is appropriate to use in a specific use case (i.e. for a specific assignment).

The phrase "evaluating information" actually stands in for a wide range of judgments that we make about information in many different contexts, whether those judgments are about relevance, timeliness, quality, etc.

Librarians have developed several different acronyms to help people remember useful criteria to use in information evaluation. One of my personal favourites is RADAR!

RADAR stands for

Relevance

Authority

Date

Accuracy

Reason for Creation

We can ask the following questions to help us assess each criterion:

Relevance:

• Does this source fit my topic?

• What is this source's intended audience?

  • Is that intended audience appropriate for my use case in this assignment?

Authority:

• Is/are the creator(s) of this source clearly identified or known to us?

• How important is it in this use case to trust the source's creator(s)?

  • If it is important, why should we trust the source's creator(s)?

  • Is the source's creator credentialed or an expert in their field?

Date:

• Is the creation or publication date of this source identified or known to us?

• Is this source too old?

Accuracy:

• Do this source's facts "check out"?

• Does the source have references of its own?

Reason for Creation (take your best guess at this question using judgments from earlier criteria):

• Why was this source made?

• Was this source made to sell a product or service, to inform/educate, to entertain, etc?

Citation Help

• Use the "cite" feature in most search tools to get you started with most resources (you will need to review and correct the citation).

• Cite Sources: Learn the correct way to cite sources by using these guides, tutorials, and videos.

  • MRU Guide to APA Style for Referencing (2024-2025)

• Academic Success Workshops: Academic Success Workshops are 75 minutes long and are offered both in-person and online. Registration is required.

• Appointments: Personalized online or in-person 30-minute appointments with a Learning Strategist at Student Learning Services located on the 2nd floor of the Riddell Library & Learning Centre.

• Use the Service Desk on the 1st floor of the RLLC for assistance as well as the library chat feature on the library website for quick citation questions.

Using Citation Management Software

Reference/citation management software allows you to save and organize items found via searching the library's databases. It also can be used to create reference lists and citations for papers. There are a number of software systems available. 

One of the most popular reference managers is Mendeley by Elsevier.

Reasons to choose Mendeley:

• Your research consists mainly of pdfs. Often this is the choice for researchers in the Sciences.

• Mendeley works well with Chrome and Safari and has a desktop version (known officially as Mendeley Reference Manager).

• Free 2 GB cloud storage.

• Mendeley has very well developed social collaboration tools. For example, you can find citations from similar users and search within its crowd-sourced research database.

• Desktop version is installed on all publicly accessible computers at MRU.