the publishing cycle. complex life forms discovered on mars! suppose the following just happened...
TRANSCRIPT
The Publishing Cycle
Complex Life Forms Discovered on Mars!
Suppose the following just happened moments ago:
In what medium would we expect it to be published first?
Assume, for the moment, that this is not big enough news to interrupt
regularly scheduled programming.Think about this before moving on…
Breaking news often first shows up on The Web
Nothing has to be interrupted, and it is immediate…
The next likely place we might receive this news is on The Radio
Headlines may be read between news breaks,
but the full story won’t go on until the next scheduled program.
Sticking with broadcast news,Television
would be the next likely medium. Since it requires pictures, TV news stories usually take longer to produce than radio news.
Meanwhile, back on The Web
Television and Radio news broadcasts may be available in
Archives after the original air date and time. Take a look at
these:Gas Plume on Mars Signals Potential Life – NPR
Web Exclusive: Life on Mars – CBS NOTE: To find this you may need to enter the search words:
web exclusive life mars
Transcriptsof television and radio news broadcasts also may be
available via paid subscription databases such as Elibrary or Campus Research.You can use Campus Research to find the transcript of :
Gas Plume on Mars Signals Potential Life from NPR. This is a transcript of the NPR broadcast on the previous page.
Once in this database, be sure to check “Broadcast Transcripts” as the “Publication Type” and enter the search phrase (in quotation marks)
“gas plume on mars signals potential life”
Extra!
Newspapersdailies, are usually next. Now it’s in print!
Extra!Life on
Mars!
Then come the weekly News Magazines
LIFE ON MARS
… followed almost immediately by coverage in
Periodical Databases
Kluger, Jeffrey. "Mission to Mars." Time 26 Jan. 2004: 42. ProQuest. Web. 07 Feb. 2006
Begley, Sharon. "The Search for Life." Newsweek 6 Dec. 1999: 54-62. ProQuest. Web. 07 Feb 2006
Two of the cover stories pictured on the previous page can be found
in the periodical database, ProQuest.
Typically, these are loaded into ProQuest within 24 hours of the print publication.
These are followed shortly thereafter by Discipline-Specific Magazines
… and these, in turn, are loaded into Periodical Databases
Eventually, scholars carefully research the topic, using reviews of the literature,
examination of data, and possibly original data gathering and analysis. The results of these studies, written by scholars for
scholars (or specialists for specialists) are published in
Journals (Scholarly or “Peer Reviewed”)
Bond, Peter. "Four Decades of Discovery and Disaster."
Astronomy & Geophysics 44.4 (2003):23-24.26. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 03 Mar. 2012.
Kerr, Richard A. "On Mars, a Second Chance for Life." Science
306.5704 (2004) 2010-2012. Academic Search Complete. 05
Mar. 2012.
These same scholars may present their findings at Conferences. Their presentations are published as
Conference ProceedingsEuropean Workshop on Exo-Astrobiology (3rd: 2003: Madrid, Spain. Proceedings of the III European Workshop on Exo-Astrobiology : Mars, the search for life: Proceedings of the 3rd European Workshop on Exo-astrobiology. Noordwijk: ESA Publications Division, 2004.
If Highline doesn’t own this, you might be able to find it in WorldCat (also known as “Wayfinder” and ask us to get it for you using our “Interlibrary Loan” service.
WorldCat is a catalog listing the holdings of all the larger libraries in the United States and many more worldwide.
Eventually, somebody writes aBook
Sawyer, Kathy. The Rock from Mars: a Detective Story on
Two Planets. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2006.
Tokano, Tetsuya, ed. Water on Mars and Life. New York: Springer, 2005.
Using the library catalog, or a tool like WorldCat, you can track these down.
Then years go by, and the subject eventually finds its way into
A Reference Book
Shostak, Seth. "Life in the Universe, Search for." Space Sciences. Ed. Pat
Dasch. Vol. 2: Planetary Science and Astronomy. New York: Macmillan
Reference USA, 2002. 84-90. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 Mar.
2012.
Awareness of the Publishing Cycle is useful when your query suggests that currency, depth, or analysis of information are important.
If you know which of these kinds of information you’re looking for, you’ll have a better idea about where to look.
Think of these ideas, along with awareness of resources, as your toolbox. Wield those
tools well!
The End