UC Davis Information & Educational Technology

Bits & Bytes

Access quick online resources for finals week

Published in The Aggie on Decemeber 06, 2006

In less than a week, fall quarter will be over, meaning there are only a few final hurdles before a glorious winter break. For some, these obstacles are final exams; for others, papers and projects. Finals week presents the opportunity for students to display the wealth of knowledge they've gained this quarter.

As technology improves and Web research expands, students may find the following websites particularly useful and interesting sources for information.

Need a quick peer-reviewed article? Visit scholar.google.com.
Search this website for journal articles, abstracts and other academic literature. Its collection continues to grow and is a convenient and easy reference when tackling any research project. Although Google Scholar does not compare to library databases, it is a valuable supplement to UC Davis' online library resources.

Looking for general information on current events or detailed excerpts from Civil War diaries? Go to lib.ucdavis.edu.
Although many books are only available in print, the campus library subscribes to a very useful range of online databases. These house anything from LexisNexis Academic, an archive of international newspapers, TV and radio transcripts, congressional testimonies, business profiles, and legal case information, to CAB Abstracts, a database of scholarly agricultural literature. Databases are searchable by subject.

Need a broad overview of a subject? Tap the world's collective knowledge with wikipedia.org.
Wikipedia, an extensive, collaborative online encyclopedia, is a great tool to use when you're just plain curious about something. It contains information on just about anything, and if its range of information fails to satisfy, the user can create an article or edit an existing one. Because anyone can contribute, Wikipedia probably isn't an acceptable source to cite in a final paper, but it is good at providing a solid knowledge base and will direct the reader to other credible sources.

No time to head to the library for a specific book? Download it at gutenberg.org or bibliomania.com.
Both websites host a collection of free electronic books. There are 19,000 books available in different languages, including fiction, classic literature, academic references, study guides, dictionaries and religious text. Browse by author, title or language. Gutenberg.org offers texts in HTML for web formatting, Plucker for viewing on a palm pilot and plain text format.

Need terminology for that New Media paper? Visit urbandictionary.com.
Emerge from finals week hip to the latest dialect. Urban Dictionary allows users to post their own definitions for slang words, and while this site may not be so useful for studying for finals, it makes for good mirth-quake material.

Bits & Bytes Archives

2006-2007

2005-2006

2004-2005

2003-2004