Chat Reference Question of the Day

You never know when a challenging question comes through on QANDANJ. I received this question this morning:

I'm looking for articles on how lay people use the internet to research science topics, and then how they evaluate the online information.

This question was from a student from Rutgers School of Communication and Information. This topic was of interest to me since several years ago I researched the topic of communicating science to the public. It seemed to me that there wouldn't be much written on this.

I searched Academic Search Premier and LISTA, but didn't find anything relevant for the student. The student then added:

My key focus is how lay people use the internet to research controversial topics, in particular nuclear energy and genetically modified foods, but i have had no luck with the specifics. i've widened my search to get something kind of relevant.

Lay people would likely Google to find information on controversial topics. I did find this article which was related to the health sciences:

Title:Evaluation of a Public Library Workshop: Teaching Older Adults How to Search the Internet for Reliable Cancer Information. Authors:Hoffman-Goetz, Laurie1 lhgoetz@uwaterloo.ca Friedman, Daniela B.2 dbfriedm@uwaterloo.ca Celestine, Ann3 acelestine@kpl.org Source:Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet; 2006, Vol. 10 Issue 3, p29-43,

This is how the chat session ended:


Patron:09:34:35 2010/03/23 (GMT-5)
my group and i have had no luck finding anything specific...lots of stuff on health research, but not more controversial scientific issues.

Librarian 1:09:35:36 2010/03/23 (GMT-5)
I went into the LISTA database which is published by EBSCO and searched on "internet searching" and "public" and "sciences" and retrieved 35 items

Patron:09:37:18 2010/03/23 (GMT-5)
ok, thanks for the tip on your search terms. i will keep looking on my own. have a great day!