RNG 477: Agroforestry

• Name: Steven Sharrow
• Email: Click to reveal this email
• Instructor's Website

"Each student is required to prepare a term paper for RNG 477 and RNG 577. The purpose of assigning a term paper is to:(1) give you additional practice in written composition, (2) provide an opportunity for you to explore a narrowly focused agroforestry subject in a more detailed, integrated way than we will be able to do in class, and (3) encourage you to develop scholarship skills as an acquirer and user of information...

"References should follow the AIBS (American Institute of Biological Sciences) style generally used in biological journals. In this style, the authorship and year of cited works is included in the text immediately after the cited material. Citations often take the form "In Africa, people (Johnson and Smith 1978), as well as livestock (Sneed 1989) are important components..." or "Smith (1990), believes that..". When more than one article is cited for an item, they should be listed in chronological order: Example: Tree tenure is important in evaluating the feasibility of agroforestry systems (Edwin 1975; Aacombe 1986; Gaff 1989)...

PAPERS DUE: at end of class period on the first class session at the beginning of Week 9."

You have eight weeks to complete this project. Use the first three to your advantage and start your research early. Here is one approach you might take.

1. During the first week, get to know the resources available to you. If you have not used the OSU Libraries recently, be sure to read this page completely. Plan to take full advantage of the library's resources including:
   • Use of the OSU Libraries catalog to see what books and reports are available on your topic.
   • Use of the "Summit" catalog to see what books and reports are available on your topic in other Oregon/Washington university libraries and request them electronically.
   • Use of the Research Oriented Databases to locate research findings and peer reviewed writings on your topic and,
     • Access these articles directly as pdf files if available,
     • Or, if only available in paper at OSU, get the information you need to locate the article in the library,
     • Or, if unavailable at OSU, request an "interlibrary loan" copy of the article so that you will receive the article from another library.
2. During the second week, begin with a small research assignment. Find at least two or three articles in research journals on a topic of interest related to this class this process will give you an idea of what problems you may encounter in searching for information on your topic.
3. Try to have most of your "literature review" done by the end of week 4 or definitely 2 weeks before you plan to write a rough draft of your paper (and DO plan to write a first draft). In this way, if you need to request items via Summit or via interlibrary loan you have allowed time for the request to be processed and the item retrieved and sent to you.
4. Remember, Your questions are always welcome but in general, the sooner, the better. Contact information is at the end of this page.

Remember you are looking for evidence in the form of scientific findings to support your paper so use multiple resources. Google Scholar is useful but it is only one tool. Library databases may take more effort, but they will also result in a better final product because they "index" a high proportion of the peer reviewed literature, cover definable time periods, and have a well defined scope of interest. The process of peer-review (sometimes called "refereeing") is discipline and journal specific. It is a well established process for assuring that articles accepted for publication in these journals represent good scientific methodology and are a contribution to the literature of that field of study. While you may run across peer reviewed material on the web, it tends to be the exception rather than the rule (in part because of the volume of material on the web). If in doubt about whether a journal contains peer reviewed articles, ask.

Most databases noted on this guide index a high percentage of "refereed" journals and therefore a high percentage of peer reviewed articles. They may also include first hand reporting of research findings or state-of-the-art reviews from other sources such as non-governmental organizations or federal agency reports, dissertations, conference proceedings, professional journals, etc. These do not fall in the "peer reviewed" category but can be excellent resources nonetheless.

• In the process of looking for even two good references, you will acquire a lot of information about terminology to use in your search and about which databases will be of most help to you.
• You will be able to get a good idea of who is writing or has done research on your topic from the authors and the references they use. This will take you back in time.
• If you find a really great article, you can use the unique cited search feature of the "Web of Science" database to find out if anyone has cited that article since it was written. This will bring you forward in time

The Library purchases access to "indexing" databases in order for you to identify articles on specific topics. These databases are independent of the holdings of any one library.

To locate references to articles in the scientific literature using these databases, begin at the OSU Libraries home page: http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu. Click on "Databases," and then on the first letter of the name of the database you want to use.  Because they are not all provided on the same web "platform" you cannot (with a few exceptions) search across several databases as once.

Most databases are not freely available to the public.   They are licensed to the library for OSU use.  If you are not on campus, you will encounter our "proxy server" asking you to "authenticate" yourself as a qualified OSU user by entering your name and (new) OSU ID number.  Apart from this, you should never be asked for an username and password while attempting to use a database.   If you are asked for one, this is usually an indication that the ports are busy.  Just try again later. 

As noted above, The Valley Library has several databases which index peer-reviewed scientific journals and other writing relevant to topics in Agroforestry.

• When considering a database, it is important to be aware of its content including:
  • Subject coverage
  • Types of publications indexed in the database e.g., research journals, scientific magazines, conference proceedings
  • Dates of coverage

Based on the above criteria and the topic examples, here are some suggestions for databases to search. Links will take you to the appropriate page of the database list, but not to the database itself.

• Academic Search Premier 1975-
  Indexes both peer reviewed ("academic") and popular literature on a wide variety of fields. This is a database to try if you are unfamiliar with searching, but like Google, consider it a beginning point, not an end point. Many (but not all) articles in this database are available in full-text or pdf files.
• Forest Science 1939-date
  Indexes the peer-reviewed and agency report literature of Forestry from an international perspective, but covers North America well. It is considered by many to be the ultimate Forestry Database and is a very strong agroforestry resource. This is a subset of CAB Abstracts from 1973-date.
• CAB Abstract 1973-date
  Indexes the peer-reviewed and agency report literature of all aspects of agriculture including forestry and agroforestry from an international perspective, but covers North America well. Search this database if your topic is more focussed on an agricultural topic.
• Agricola (use the version via EBSCOHost) 1970-date
  Indexes the peer-reviewed and agency report literature of the National Agriculture Library and is a good resource for USDA and extension material.
• Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management 1967-
  Indexes a wide variety of literature related to the environment. Include Environmental Impact Statements.
• Science.gov [2004]-
  Science.gov is a new "gateway to authoritative selected science information provided by U.S. Government agencies, including research and development results." When you are not sure which agency may have done current research on a topic this will be a good search service to try.
• TreeSearch 1997-
  Indexes research report series published by the US Forest Service and as of 2004, includes the full-text of all peer reviewed research published by authors employed by the USFS.
• Web of Science (Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index) 1996-
  Indexes the major peer-reviewed journals in all fields of science. Represents core life science journals defined as those most often cited in peer-reviewed research articles. Searchable by topic, author, journal name, cited author, and cited journal.
  One way to use Science Citation Index to help you with this term paper is to see who might have cited the papers listed under Suggested Topics in the course information. The assumption is that these later authors would be working on similar research.
• Wildlife Ecology Studies Worldwide 1935-
  Indexes agency reports as well as peer reviewed journals. If you are looking at a topic where agroforestry impacts wildlife, this might be a useful database but it should not be your first choice.Note: Mac Users are unable to use this database. We are looking into, but have not received a good explanation for this.

Once you have done a search in one or all of these databases you should have a list of articles which are potentially relevant to your topic.

See above under Accessing Library Databases for information on how to access databases,

These databases all have accessible Help screens that provide tips and advice for effective searching. In general problems in searching are in three areas:

1. I can't find anything on my topic.
   • This may happen if you are trying to limit your search to a geographic region. Consider if the techniques or species you are interested in are unique to that region, in which case adding "oregon" or "africa" or "Zimbabwe" may be unnecessary.
   • Do you have an idea based on fact (your text, readings, instructor, etc.) that there is a lot written on this topic? If so, you may need to broaden your approach to searching. If you are using phrases like "hedgerows in farming systems" consider changing this to "hedgerows AND farming systems" -- the difference is that you are not requiring the exact phrase.
   • In general, use truncation (usually by adding an asterisk, "*" to the root of a word, like "biodivers*" to get both biodiversity/biodiverse.
   • If you have words that are synonyms (the common name and scientific name of a tree species for instance) use an "OR" rather than "and" to join them.
2. I have too much on my topic, and all of it is seems relevant.
   • If you use a database with abstracts you can do a lot of culling of articles and select those you want to read more carefully. Allow time for this culling and for the reading.
   • "Too much" may be an indicator that your topic is too broad and you may want to narrow it. To do this add in a new concept.
   • It is likely, however that there is a lot written on most topics, so consider evaluating your sources for quality: how many of these resources are from the "peer reviewed" literature? do you have a representation of researchers findings?
3. My search gives me too much and it doesn't seem relevant.
   • This is a good indication that your search terms are too broad.
   • Be sure that you are using the most specific terminology available.
   • You may need some help with your search, contact me.

1. Get This Item: Many of the databases listed above contain a button called "Get This Item" or "Webbridge."   Using this link will open a window with links to the library catalog and to the e-journal list so you can investigate the availability of the source journal.  In the ideal case, it will result in a direct link to the full-text of the article.
2. E-Journal list: If you have a reference and want to see if OSU Libraries subscribes to the electronic version of that journal (or some service that provides the full-text from that journal), click the E-Journals link on the Library's home page and type in the name of the journal that you need. If the article you need is not available from the E-Journals list, then try the catalog.
3. Online Catalog: Search the online catalog (limit to "journals") to see if the library has a paper copy of the journal. You can then photocopy the article. Most bound journals circulate for three days. Unbound journals do not circulate outside the library.
4. ** If you choose, you can try a Google Advanced Search.   It is best to search the title of the article as an exact phrase). This is a long shot so if it doesn't work immediately, a better use of you time is checking to see if the library has the journal in some format and if not, filling out the interlibrary loan request form. If you decide to post your own articles to the web, be sure that you know what copyright restrictions apply by contacting the publisher. When this is allowed, it is more often the case that you are allowed post the pre-formated version (of your own articles only) but not the final journal formated version.
5. As a graduate student, you should expect that OSU Libraries will not subscribe to or own every journals you need. You will need to use Interlibrary loan to obtain the articles.

You can get a copy of any journal article not available at OSU Libraries by using Interlibrary Loan (ILL).  This service is free to you.

You must have an ONID account to register for ILL.  From the OSU Libraries catalog, look for the link to Interlibrary Loan  and select "Log on for ILL Service."  Consider registering now, before you actually need to request an article.

We are able to obtain the majority of requested articles within 5-7 days depending on the number of libraries owning the journal.   Some requests take more time some take less.  On the rare occasion that the Library is unable to identify a lending library, we will try to get the information you will need to contact the author directly. 

Articles usually come as PDF files that are sent you a secure website for your use.  You can also use ILL to request books (or chapters of books) if you are unable to locate then in the Summit catalog.

Listed below are websites that you may find useful in providing some references for your paper and for acquiring background information. Consider each as one of many tools available to you and don't limit yourself to that site. If you use information from these or other websites in your paper, be sure to cite the source using an appropriate format (consider looking at the Style Guide for BioScience), pages 9-13.

1. For more information on maps and GIS data sets (in case you need them), use the library Maps research guide
   http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/research/guides/maps/maproom.htm
2. For international research related to agroforestry World Agroforestry Center
   http://www.worldagroforestry.org/
3. For agroforestry resources on the web AgNIC: Agroforestry
   http://forestry.lib.umn.edu/agnic/agroforestry.phtml
4. For more on a collaboration between the US Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service National Agroforestry Center
   http://www.unl.edu/nac/
5. For more on agroforestry initiatives of the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service CSREES
   http://www.csrees.usda.gov/about/about.html
6. For more on Oregon Forestry use the Oregon Department of Forestry
   http://egov.oregon.gov/ODF/index.shtml
7. For more on Oregon Agriculture use the Oregon Department of Agriculture
   http://www.oregon.gov/ODA/index.shtml
8. For more on international collaborations in Forestry sponsored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization FAO Forestry
   http://0-www.fao.org.oasis.oregonstate.edu:80/forestry/
9. And, of course refer back to your syllabus for suggestions.

1. Purpose : Is it there to inform? Persuade? Sell? Entertain?
2. Authorship & Authority : What are the person's (group's) credentials? Can you tell? Is the person/group credible? An authority?
3. Objectivity : Does the site have a bias? Can you articulate what it is?
4. Accuracy : Are sources cited or acknowledged?
5. Currency : How current is the information? Is this important?
6. Completeness : Is the information complete or just a summary of information found elsewhere?

Theses and dissertations written by students at OSU will appear in the online catalog (and in Summit).  They are housed in the library under the general call number LD4330 and then grouped by year and then by author last name.  Since 2006, theses and dissertations are submitted electronically to the ScholarsArchive@OSU with a link in the catalog.  If you add the term "theses" to any keyword search in the catalog you will get theses and dissertations on that subject (or by that author) -- but only those from OSU.  

Dissertation Abstracts International is a database that indexes PhD dissertations and some theses worldwide.  For those not in Summit, you would need to use interlibrary loan  ("request a thesis"). 

Masters theses are often only cataloged by the local library but you can use WorldCat to identify these or for those written between 1900 and 1992 in the U.S. you could use the 7 volume work "Forestry theses accepted by colleges and universities in the United State "  created by some dedicated OSU librarians of years past (these are available as pdf files).   

If you are new to database searching or haven't searched for a year or so, follow the "more" link below for some tips.

• Read More...

• Librarian: Bonnie Avery
• Office Location: The Valley Library
• Office Hours: By Appointment
• Contact: AIM: VLibAvery
• Email: Click to reveal email
• 
  
  

  ---

  If you need help using the resources described above, you can ask at the Library Reference Desk or use the library's "chat" reference service, linked from most library web-pages.

  If you need help deciding on a database or search strategy (i.e. what terms to use for your topic) contact me by email. In your email, please tell me about your topic, how you have gone about your search to date, and what problems you have encountered.