Engineering Author Information
Now that you have found an article on an engineering topic of
interest to you, your assignment is almost complete. Now you must determine
if the author of your article is credible and to do that you must find some
information on the author; that is, his or her credentials- Information such
as degrees earned, or place of employment, or organizations that the author
belongs to professionally, or awards that the author has received, or any
other piece of information tha you think qualifies this author to write the
article you selected.
Where do I start?
First, go back to the journal where you found your article
and make sure it is in fact a JOURNAL rather than a magazine.
The difference?
Journals contain articles written by experts in the field;
engineers if it is an engineering journal. Magazine articles are written by
reporters. Reporters may be quite knowledgeable on a topic but they are not
professional engineers. They are professional writers. Journal articles are
also refereed by a group of peers, fellow experts, before they are chosen
for publication. Magazine articles are not; they are selected by editors.
And magazines typically contain advertising while journals, in general, do
not.
(There are, of course, exceptions to these guidelines. For
example, Scientific American certainly contains ads but the articles
are written by experts not reporters.)
A very useful feature!
One feature that you will often find in a journal is very helpful.
Many journals contain a brief biographical paragraph about each author with
an article in that journal, i.e., information such as degrees, employment,
research interests, and so on. This is precisely the information you need
to determine the author's credentials. Again, not every journal will supply
this and in some it can be quite brief. (e.g. The CIRP Annals will
only tell you if the author is a member of the CIRP organization but this
is in itself very significant.*)
Exceptions?
Some journals, however, give no more than the author's name
and affiliation or place of employment. And obviously this will make your
search for author information a bit more tedious. But there are still places
to look!
The first case is if the author is located at a college or
a university or a research center. In this case simply search the web for
the university home page using a search engine such as Google. Each
university site is different but each should have a department or division
section where you will find a list of faculty along with enough biographical
information to determine an author's qualifications.
The second case is an author affiliated with a corporation
or some other industrial center; or even some governmental center. While it
is still possible to use a web search here, the results are not as helpful
as in the first case. Corporate web sites tend to promote the corporation
and its activities rather than its employees. But even here you should at
least see a telephone number or an e-mail address and you can use this information
to contact the author yourself and ask him or her to provide you with the
information that you need to complete your assignment.
Anything else?
Here are some other sources and strategies you may try to find
some author information:
-Use Einstein, the library catalog,
to see if the library collection has any books written by the author in
question. If so, the book will often contain biographical information. If
the actual book is not available, try to find a book review; use the
Book Review Digest.
-Try an author search in an engineering index (e.g. Compendex)
to find more articles by the same author; multiple publications is evidence
of research and expertise.
-Use a citation index (e.g. Science Citation Index)
and see if the author has been cited by other experts in the field; more
evidence of expertise.
-Try an author search in a patent
database; yet more evidence.
-Use a newspaper index (e.g. Lexis/Nexis
to see if the author has been in the news recently. (A popular magazine
index, Readers
Guide for example, may also work here.) The news report may supply some
author information.
-Try Who's Who in Engineering REF TA139.E37 1995; a
particularly noteworthy author might turn up here.
-Try the Biography
Index or the section titled Biographical Info available through
Lexis/Nexis.
Again a prominent author may be mentioned here.
Finally
The final resort is addressed in case #2 above. If you can
find NOTHING about an author, you are encouraged to contact the author in
question directly and ask for an interview. Good luck in your quest!
* See International Directory of Engineering Societies and
Related Organizations. (16th Edition.) AAES: Washington D.C. 1999.
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