It's time to "engage with information" (Eisenberg and Berkowitz's Big6), to "input" (Yucht's Flip It!), to begin "collecting information," (Kuhlthau's ISP) or... you know... time to "web." I started – where else? – Google. Why? Because I’m most comfortable with it. I first searched: “’organic food’ cost.” This already brought up a lot of information, but not necessarily from the most reliable sources. Many results were just single, general articles on news sites. I expanded my search to just “organic food” to find what the most popular websites and organizations were. I found a lot of information about what organic food is and why it costs more, but I didn’t find much critical analysis regarding if it’s worth the extra cost. Specifically, do these differences in organic food matter? Are we really healthier as a result of eating organic food? Or, another concern of mine, is organic farming really better for the environment? All these things play into the cost. So I began to yearn for articles from scholarly journals.
I headed to Inspire – Academic Search Premier because I’m – again – most comfortable with it. I guess I have had to use it pretty regularly for various SLIS assignments, and I tend to have good luck with it. Right off the bat I found this article: Organic Food: Buying More Safety or Just Peace of Mind? A Critical Review of the Literature. That sounds like what I’m looking for, and the abstract reinforces this feeling. Another: Is organic food better for our health? Perfect! There are many other relevant articles. I’m trying to decide if it would help my product to maybe interview someone about this topic. But who would I interview? My aunt, a devoted organics consumer? Perhaps I could interview the owner of the Bleeding Heart Bakery in Chicago; it’s an all organic bakery and café, and I’m always looking for a reason to go there. My problem with this idea is that I think these people are already too biased. I need the critical analysis, and I feel pretty confident that many of these articles in the scholarly journals are just what I’m looking for.
This seems too easy… Now I just need to pinpoint what kind of information might be most helpful. Maybe that will be the greater challenge. The wiggling.
1 comment:
So you went the organic route. Hey, any excuse to go to a bakery is all I need. Af far as it being too easy, I thought that for awhile too, but then I started to understand the immense amount of reading and information involved and it didn't seem so simple anymore. Good luck and I'll be interested, especially if you uncover any information about organic food and babies.
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