Scientific and Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Policy

Introduction

Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose is a murder mystery set in a Benedictine monastery during the first half of the fourteenth century. In one climactic scene the young monk called Adso finds new appreciation for a very old place.

Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or been their conveyors.

The library, indeed the whole world of research, is an ongoing discussion. Writers and illustrators contribute to this discussion through journals, films, videotapes, compact discs and, of course, books. All contributions have two purposes:

1) to substantiate and defend a position
2) to acknowledge the contributions of others

Most participation requires research. Because projects in all areas of science and technology are crossing disciplines, many of you will need to research areas in which you have no formal background. Although you cannot be expected to gain such a background in the brief time allotted a given project, you can and will be expected to know enough of research techniques to find information outside your field quickly and efficiently.

This chapter will offer an overview of information resources. We will follow the research for an imaginary project -- a study of the history of the controversy surrounding tuna fishing industry and dolphins -- from beginning to conclusion. It is a complex history, involving natural science (dolphins, tuna and the oceans), technology (commercial fishing), an environmental organization (Greenpeace), corporations (the tuna processing industry), and international politics (the United States and Colombia). Our path will take us to many types of documents from many sources.

Exactly when research fits into the writing process depends upon the document in question, the writer's abilities and inclinations, and the availability of information. For instance, if the author is new to the field, most of her research must precede her writing. Some feel better having gathered most or all the information before writing begins; others are comfortable making an outline first. For most scientific and technical projects -- as for this example -- research and writing must be carried on simultaneously. Some research will be performed before writing begins, and some will be necessary even as the paper is nearly complete.

Libraries

A university library contains millions of volumes representing an almost incomprehensible amount of information, all crowded into a few floors; even a small public library contains more words than you will read in your lifetime. Like Adso, we may be intimidated. But the Manhattan Telephone Directory also contains an enormous amount of information, yet few of us would be discouraged from using it. Why? Because we understand that the quantity of information, although large, is organized. Libraries too, are organized. And although the method of organization is somewhat more complex than that of a telephone directory, it is not as complex as you might expect.

Many libraries use Dewey Decimal Classification, which divides all knowledge into ten categories, and assigns them numbers -- general works (100-199), social sciences (400-499), pure science (600-699), technology (700-799), etc. Each of these categories is divided into subcategories which are in turn further divided -- until a given work has its own "call number." Dewey Decimal, however, has been largely superseded by the Library of Congress classification system. It divides principle branches of knowledge by letters (A for "General Works," B-BJ for "Philosophy, Psychology," BL-BX for "Religion," C for "Auxiliary Sciences of History," and so on). For purposes of our paper we will expect to find material in Q (Science) and T (Technology).

Subdivisions are made by adding numbers from 1 to 9999. Further subdivisions are added with a decimal point and more letters and numbers, always adhering to the same general pattern, until a given book has "call letters." Certain libraries combine Dewey Decimal with Library of Congress -- allowing books obtained while Dewey Decimal was in place to retain its designation.

References

Reference works are almanacs, encyclopedias yearbooks and the like -- in other words, all publications which provide specific information. They are very useful, and can provide the backbone of research.

Ready References

Ready references are the most-used references; as such, in any library they are located in a central and accessible place. And although the term is not restrictive, it usually includes dictionaries, almanacs and guides to more specialized references.

Sheehy's Guide to Reference Books offers a coherent overview, listing and describing over 10,000 titles. Sheehy's categorizes works according to subject within five areas -- one of which is "science, technology and medicine." Entries within these areas are organized alphabetically by author, edition or title.

Walford's Guide to Reference Material is the British counterpart to Sheehy's, offering a more international and consequently somewhat more comprehensive view. It is published in three volumes, the first of which takes as its purview science and technology.

Core List of Books and Journals in Science and Technology is a selective listing of works especially useful to those new to a field of study.

Almanacs, Yearbooks and Atlases

Almanacs report quantified information which is quickly outdated: the population of Mexico City, the borders of Israel, the governments of East European nations, plants and animals on the U.S. endangered species list, and total annual profits from Fortune 500 corporations. They also contain more permanent information -- like the altitudes of major world airports, dates of U.S. presidents, and atomic weights of the elements.) For our research paper, we might want a rough idea of the amount of money involved in the fishing industry: The World Almanac Book of Facts cites 1992 U.S, fish imports and exports at $3.4 million.

Yearbooks describe important events for a given year. They contain statistical information, news summaries, and important developments in major fields. Most encyclopedias publish yearbooks as supplements. A glance through the Encyclopedia Britannica's 1994 yearbook reveals nothing on dolphins caught in tuna nets, but it does take us to an entry which discusses a decline in total world catch for 1993.

Atlases are books of maps of terrain and/or political features. But they can also be made to represent population, languages and climates. Most atlases have sections devoted to features like population, manufacturing, and natural resources. And although we are likely to think of atlases as representations of earth, there are a great many atlases of celestial objects -- the Moon, Mars and the heavens in general. There are also atlases of bodies of water. For our research paper, we might peruse The Times Atlas of the Oceans -- which includes a map of the Pacific highlighted with areas of commercial fishing -- if only to acquaint ourselves with the area in question.

A CD-ROM (literally, compact disk, read-only memory) is an optical disc which has a very large storage capacity (the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, or the information on 450 floppy discs, may be stored on one), and which allows the user fast access to any part. The CD-ROM PC Globe allows its user to manipulate electronically images of maps and accompanying statistics. You may click on any entry in a list of international organizations (the Organization of Independent States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and those countries will be highlighted on an accompanying world map. Or, you may point a cursor at anywhere on a blank world map -- and the name of the indicated country will appear in a box on the lower part of the screen. For this paper, we might use PC Globe to re-familiarize ourselves with nations on the Pacific coast of South America.

Encyclopedias

You are probably familiar with encyclopedias written for the layperson: Americana, Britannica and Collier's. You may not realize that there are numerous encyclopedias devoted to particular subjects: the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, and the Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Engineering, for instance. These offer ease of use offered by more general encyclopedias and -- in the cases of most entries -- far more detail. Many are multi-volume works (The Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences is sixteen); others, like Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia, are a single volume intended as a desk reference.

The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology is invaluable for seeking information in a discipline other than your own. The sixth edition (1987) includes twenty volumes and an index. It offers over seven thousand articles from every field in science and technology, all written by authorities in the appropriate areas, and all written for the non-specialist. Further, the work is supplemented annually with a yearbook which discusses "recent events and research." An abbreviated one-volume version is also available.

It is safe to assume that there exists at least one encyclopedia associated with your field of study. For the tuna/dolphin paper we might turn to The Encyclopedia of the Biological Sciences for general background at the beginning of our research, and return to it when we come across a word or a concept that is unclear.

Handbooks

A handbook is a condensed treatment of an area of knowledge, often in a single volume. A laboratory is likely to regard the handbook relevant to its work as indispensable, and will make it available to workers. Most handbooks in engineering and the natural sciences contain tables, graphs and other presentations of numerical data. Handbooks in social sciences contain definitions and descriptions. You might be surprised at the number of specialized fields concerned with enough standards to require handbooks; there are, for instance, a Beginner's Handbook in Biological Electron Microscopy and a Handbook of Acoustical Measurements and Noise Control.

Handbooks and Tables in Science and Technology is a ready reference which will help you identify the handbook appropriate to your needs. It lists over three thousand handbooks and tables in science, technology and medicine; it is indexed by subject, keyword, author/editor and title; and it includes in most entries brief descriptions.

No handbook exists suited particularly to the needs of this paper, although we might examine Synopsis and Classification of Living Organisms -- if only to differentiate dolphin from porpoise, and perhaps to gain more background.

Books

Computers and computer software have begun to employ useful aspects of books, and to compete with books. Defenders of books said that they were portable in ways computers were not; then there came laptop computers. Some said eyes became tired looking at illuminated characters; and there appeared screens with dark characters on white or off-white backgrounds. Defenders of books said that full-color photographs could be produced easily and cheaply only on the printed page; and there appeared CD-ROMs with full-color pictures, even video. In fact, books have few advantages that technology cannot better. For all this, pages printed and bound are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. A psychological factor seems to be at play: people are still more at ease with books than with machines.

The Card Catalogue

The card catalogue contains means to find every book in the library. Three cards exist for every book: one filed according to title, one according to author, and one according to subject. Many libraries now have their catalogue on computer. Typically, a computerized card catalogue allows you to search according not only by book title, book author, and subject -- but also by key word (that is, a word which describes its content) and call letters.

A title search is useful, of course, only if you are fortunate enough to know the title. We might venture a guess that somewhere there is a book whose title begins with "Dolphin," and are rewarded with thirteen. The most recent is a book of poetry, as is indicated by its call letters -- PS.

An author search may end with more than one author with the same name, and require further searches. The advantage is that the screen will show all the works of your target author -- because authors are likely to write within a field or in related fields, you may find another work relevant to your research.

A subject search will show you all the books on the subject in question. The disadvantage, of course, is that there may be a great many: a subject search for "dolphin" produces 49 entries. The advantage is that you may find something you didn't know was there -- in this case, a useful overview entitled Dolphins and Porpoises: A Worldwide Guide.

A "key word" search will produce the greatest number of possibilities (in this case 79), perhaps too many to be useful. Fortunately, most systems allow a search using more than one key word, through "Boolean logic" -- a means of categorization represented by three words: and, or and not. A search for "dolphins or tuna" produces all works with either key words -- 193 entries -- far too many for us to examine. A search for "dolphins and tuna" produces all works with both key words -- a more manageable 10. Suppose you are uncertain whether the word "porpoises" is commonly used; so you try "tuna and dolphins or porpoises." The system would find all the books categorized under the first term and either the second or the third -- in this case, 38:

Search Request: K=TUNA AND DOLPHINS OR PORPOISES VCAT - UVA LIBRARY Search Results: 38 Entries Found Keyword Index

DATE TITLE: AUTHOR

1 1993 Dolphins and porpoises: a worldwide guide Sylveste, Jean-P
2 1992 An Act to Amend the Marine Mammal Protecti United States
3 1992 Dolphins and the tuna industry
4 1992 International Dolphin Protection Act of United States
5 1992 Tuna current issues affecting United States Inte
6 1991 Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Ac United States
7 1991 Labeling of tuna products: hearing before United States

The entries are listed in reverse chronological order -- an arrangement which assists us for two reasons. First, we may assume that more recent work responds to and perhaps incorporates earlier work. Second, the references cited in the most recent work are likely to list previous relevant work. In this case, the third entry seems to be an overview; we choose to see it:

Search Request: K=TUNA AND DOLPHINS OR PORPOISES VCAT - UVA LIBRARY BOOK - Number 3 of 38 Entries found Brief View

AUTHOR National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Reducing Porpoise Mortality from Tuna Fishing.
TITLE Dolphins and the Tuna Industry
PUBLISHED Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992

Our guess was right -- it is an overview, and will be invaluable in the first part of our research. We locate the book on the shelves.

There is a disadvantage of card catalogues -- or perhaps the way people use card catalogues. Because they enable you to locate the book quickly, precisely, and by number, you do not need to look at titles surrounding the target book. Consequently, you deny yourself a chance to make a serendipitous discovery. And many scholars have said that their most valuable findings resulted from wandering around in the stacks and letting a certain title catch their eye. Incidentally, most systems make possible a little-used electronic corollary of wandering: by calling up the book's call number, then moving ahead to the next number or back to the previous, you can find out what is on the shelf around your target book.

It is a good idea to leaf through books -- information vital to your work may not be contained the key word summary supplied by the card catalogue, and may not be suggested by the cover. Look first at the table of contents. Do the chapter titles tell more? Are certain chapters likely to contain what you need? If so, then turn to them and skim them for names and/or subjects you recognize. Some books, though, are not designed so neatly, and the information you need is buried inside a chapter whose title seems to concern an unrelated subject. If nothing in the table of contents promises answers, turn to the index. Scan the index, front to back, for words that may be associated with your concerns. If such a word is accompanied by a reference to two or more pages, look at those pages.

Librarians tell a story about Harvard's head librarian in the early nineteenth century. He is hurrying across the university grounds one morning when he is stopped by an acquaintance who asks why he is smiling. His reply: "All the books are in excepting two. I know who has those, and I am going after them."

Some of the image may arise from a time when books were so rare that libraries chained them to tables. Technologies from the printing press to computer database have made such practices seem quaint. Still, access to information is controlled in more subtle ways -- databases may charge fees, and certain information may be restricted.

Books in Print is a ready reference providing bibliographic information concerning a certain book. It is published annually, in eight volumes listing over one million works categorized according to author, title and subject. As the title suggests, the listing is only of works still being published. If you wish to find works that are out of print, the obvious source is libraries, the means to learn of their existence is through Internet, and the means to obtain them is through interlibrary loan. The book you request may not appear for several days -- a delay your research and composition strategy must consider. Be aware too, that libraries do not loan texts they consider especially valuable or fragile, although most will honor a request for a photocopy.

Periodicals and Serials

Information in scientific and technical fields is generated quickly, too quickly for book publishers to keep pace. The gaps between books are filled by periodicals and serials. Generally speaking, a periodical is published at scheduled and/or regular intervals and identified by successive numbers; most professional journals and magazines are periodicals. A serial is usually defined as any publication (including monographs, periodicals and newspapers) published indefinitely. But these are slippery terms, and largely interchangeable.

Because periodicals and serials are produced in great quantity at a rapid and accelerating rate, libraries keep only the most recent issues on shelves. The rest are transferred into microform -- a transparency upon which is printed optically reduced text and/or illustration, readable with a viewer. There are two types of microform: microfiche, a flat transparency measuring about three by five inches, and microfilm -- a roll. More recently, periodicals and serials are put on CD-ROMs, providing much easier access and better legibility.

Indexes and Abstracts You may locate articles in periodicals and serials through indexes. An index is a list of bibliographic citations usually arranged by subject, by author and/or by classification scheme; an index may provide citations to journal articles, technical reports or patents. You may discover the contents of an article through abstracts. An abstract is a brief summary of a longer work. You may locate a specific index or abstract through the ready reference The Index and Abstract Directory -- which lists most indexes and abstract journals by subject.

The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature is the standard index used by most high school students. Its disadvantage is that the articles it cites are of general interest and not specialized enough to answer the needs of most professional research. Moreover, to a great degree it has been superseded by several database collections of indexes which allow the user to access more articles with far less effort. Sophisticated research requires specialized indexes and abstract journals -- and most fields have them. As you should familiarize yourself with the professional society and journal(s) associated with your field, so you should know the most used and most useful indexes and abstract journals in your field. Many are listed here.

Multidisciplinary	Agriculture	Bioscience
Science Citation Index	Animal Breeding Abstracts	Biological Abstracts
Dissertation Abstracts	Biological and Agricultural	International Abstracts
General Science Index	Horticultural Abstracts	Index of Biological Sciences
British Technology Index	--	--

Chemistry	Computer Sciences	Engineering
Chemical Abstracts	Computer Abstracts	Applied Science & Technology Index
Electroanalytical Abstracts	Computer & Control Abstracts	Electical & Electronics Abstracts Engineering Index
--	Computer Literature Index	--

Environmental Sciences	Geology	Conferences
Acid Rain Abstracts	Abstracts of North American	Conference Paper Index
Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts	Geology Bibliography and Index of Geology	Directory of Published Proceedings
Environment Abstracts	Geological Abstracts	Index to Scientific and Technical Proceedings
Pollution Abstracts	Geological Abstracts	--
Environment Index	--	--

The Scientific American Index (SCIDEX) -- the cumulative index of articles appearing in Scientific American from 1948 to present -- is on CD-ROM, but lists no article on our subject. The Science Citation Index is available on CD-ROM. A keyword search with "dolphin and tuna" yields:

Fiedler-PC Reilly-SB

Interannual Variability of Dolphin Habitats in the Eastern Tropical Pacific .2. Effects of Abundances Estimated from Tuna Vessel Sightings, 1975-1990 (English) => Article

FISHERY BULLETIN Vol 92 Iss 2 pp 451-463 1994 (NH457)

Related Records: 15 Cited References: 20

Edwards-EF Perrin-C

Effects of Dolphin Group Type, Percent Coverage, and Fleet Size on Estimates of Annual Dolphin Mortality Derived from 1987 United States Tuna-Vessel Observer Data (English) => Article

FISHERY BULLETIN
Vol 91 Iss 4 pp 628-640 1993 (ML937)

Related Records: 1 Cited References: 7

The article seems to offer empirical information -- that is, real numbers -- regarding your subject. This may be the work from which newspapers quote their estimates.

Indexes and Abstracts to Newspapers

Newspapers provide information intended for the layperson -- and so may not answer interests and needs which are more specialized. On the other hand, newspapers are current; information in a given issue may be only hours old. In recent years many libraries have begun using computerized newspaper indexes which allow a user to find a particular article from hundreds of papers.

NewsBank is an index to articles "of research value" from newspapers in over 450 U.S. cities. The articles are reproduced on microfiche, and published monthly with a printed index. NewsBank is particularly useful for research on a specific issue or event because it provides local (and, therefore, in-depth) reports.

Newspapers Abstracts (NABS) is a CD-ROM which provides citations and abstracts (that is, brief summaries) of articles from 28 major newspapers updated weekly. A NABS keyword search for "tuna and dolphins" produces 145 entries. Titles include "Tuna Boycott is Ruled Illegal by GATT Panel," "Dolphins and the Trade Laws," and "Dolphin Deaths Spur Tuna Embargo." Because the first title seems especially relevant, you display its record:

Search Request: K=TUNA AND DOLPHINS Newspaper Abstracts
NABS RECORD 1 of 145 Entries Found Long View

You decide that you need to examine the article, and you look to microforms -- where articles are categorized alphabetically by journal and newspaper.

Conducting Research
Chapter 4: Part 1

David M. Toomey with James H. Collier

Book Contents

Chapter 4: Part 1

Conducting Research Chapter 4: Part 1

David M. Toomey with James H. Collier

Book Contents

Chapter 4: Part 1

Conducting Research
Chapter 4: Part 1