6.2. Orientation paths in many scientific sources

The peculiar difficulty of a scientist in mastering a new field of knowledge for him is currently not in the absence of sources, but in their abundance. There is a problem of choosing the sources that would bring information in the shortest possible way.

The main types of printed materials are: books in the form of monographs and textbooks, periodicals of domestic and foreign journals, quasi-periodic collections of works of institutes, “express information” and abstract indexes. Let us briefly describe the characteristics of each of them.

Books Every experienced reader knows that with the same correct presentation of a scientific subject, the form and methodological perfection of books can be different. A novice researcher tries to compensate for this imperfection by superficial acquaintance with many sources. However, experience shows that another principle is more reliable: it is better to work out one correctly selected book in more depth, in depth, than several selected ones at random. How to find this methodically written book?

It is possible to indicate several of its formal features.

a) It is moderately large in volume. The logical and thoughtful presentation of any subject does not require many dozens of printed sheets. Excessive verbosity does not clarify the truth, but hides it for the details that the reader can “guess” himself.

b) In it, the text alternates with formulas. The book, almost devoid of formulas, cannot constructively present a scientific and technical subject. A book containing a small amount of verbal explanations to formulas makes it difficult and slows down understanding.

c) Methodically perfect book contains many numerical examples, often deliberately simple, so that the calculations do not overshadow the essence of the stated question.

d) Such a book is usually understandable at every step of reading, it does not contain cumbersome statements that “will be explained later”. Later, evidence may be cited for clarification, but the essence of the affirmed should be clear at the time of the approval of thought.

One should be cautious when postponing a “not understandable” book: this misunderstanding may be the result of not its poor quality, but insufficient preparation of the reader. On the contrary, every book should not be considered good only because everything is clear in it: excessive “clarity” may be a consequence of elementary and sound; Usually, a popular book is intended not for deepening knowledge, but for general reference.

e) This book contains a large amount of graphic material ( drawings, diagrams, graphs). This circumstance follows from the high-bandwidth property of the human eye.

It should not be assumed that always the “best” book is the last one in time. For the purpose of learning the fundamentals of science, for example of logic, transient processes, many other branches of mathematics and physics, books written many years ago can be used.

It should not be assumed that the best book is a translated book, “overseas”. A chorus of science and tori can be scientists of all countries. A whole series of books by our domestic scientists have been translated into many languages ​​of the world.

Magazines. As a rule, several (sometimes up to ten) journals are published for each field of study. In relation to them, the following statement seems to be true: it is better to regularly monitor a properly small number of journals than to look at everything from case to case .

A novice researcher when selecting this “small number” of journals is best to get advice from a senior colleague. You can also find “your” journals by a series of “samples” based on a study of reference pointers (see about this below) .

When selecting and studying journals, one should pay attention not only to their subject matter , but also to the intended contingent of readers. The magazine can be mostly   it is intended for scientific workers (theorists or, on the contrary, experimenters), engineers, people combining science with pedagogy, and even for businessmen connected with scientific activity, or more precisely with the use of industry results from science.

It seems that on average, a researcher is in no need to monitor 3–4 Russian women and the same number of foreign workers . For a number of public and domestic journals, it became characteristic to publish their issues on narrow issues.

Quasi-periodic collections of papers. These collections are published by educational institutions and research institutes and enterprises, and approximately at a frequency of one -   two years. In a sense, they are equivalent to journals, but usually they are more specific . One should not pass over in silence the fact that information of the highest ranks is more often found in all-Russian journals than in departmental collections of works about art. The degree of compression of the exposition in these collections is , as a rule, even higher than in the journals, and at the practical-methodical level of publications is lower. However, a researcher who has already determined that the articles in his field of work are published in the collection of works of a certain institute should undoubtedly follow these publications.

The general list of all published collections with an indication of their mathematics does not exist in a generally accessible form. Therefore, as a rule, information about collections of institutions is disseminated through scientific connections — at conferences, through joint research, and scientific trips.

Express information and “Review Journal ”. “Fast” (express) information, “Abstract Journal” and other similar sources of information are given by VINITI. Here we will only indicate their names with a very brief description.

1) “ Reference Well in Rnal”. Contains brief annotations of the book and articles, inventions. Issued 12 times a year in approximately 30 thematic sections.

2) “Express Information”. Issued in 30 episodes of 4   rooms in months c . “Express information” is distinguished by a greater depth and detail in the presentation of the content of the most important publications in special journals. In addition, it is more operative.

3) “Signal Information”. These are monthly issues containing a list of all receipts at VINITI over the past month. Published in the fields of physical, chemical, biological, and others .

4) Abstract card files and (RC) and abstracts on maps with edge perforation (207х144 mm). Published only in some sections of science and technology.

5) "Results of science and technology." it   issues containing reviews of achievements in various fields of technology. Periodically , from one to several years.

6) “The deposited scientific papers” and “VINITI Publications for the past year”. These are bibliographic indexes, the content of which follows from the titles.

7) “Bulletin of international scientific conventions, conferences, congresses, exhibitions”.

For beginner researchers , the “Abstract Journal” and “Express Information” seem to be the most interesting. However, they cannot replace the reading of the original journal articles. Both editions are only a “signal”, indicating the need to refer to the relevant journal . In addition, the “review” of the article, even in a little-known language, gives the researcher a lot of useful information about her progress .

Internet as a means of obtaining information and communication

The need to form a single global information space led to the creation of a global computer network the Internet. Currently, tens of millions of computers connected to the Internet store a huge amount of information and hundreds of millions of people use the information services of this network.

Information networks create a real opportunity for quick and convenient user access to all information accumulated by mankind over the entire history. Electronic computer mail, computer newsgroups and videoconferences, information search on the World Wide Web have become the daily practice of computer users.

Internet addressing

In order for the exchange of computers to occur in the process of information exchange, a uniform addressing system based on the use of an IP address exists on the Internet . Each computer connected to the Internet has its own unique 32-bit IP address.

The IP addressing system takes into account the structure of the Internet. An IP address consists of two parts, one of which is the network address and the other the address of the computer on the network. To ensure maximum flexibility in the process of distributing IP addresses, the networks are divided into three classes - A, B, C, depending on the number of networks of this class and the number of computers in the network. The first bits of the address are assigned to identify the class, and the rest are divided into the network address and the computer address (Table 1).

Table 1

IP addressing in networks of various classes

Some top-level domain names.

The domain name system associates a unique domain name with the numeric IP address of each computer. Domain addresses are assigned in the Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC) and read from right to left. The rightmost group of letters denotes the top-level domain. Top-level domains are of two types: geographical (two-letter - each country has a two-letter code) and administrative (three-letter) (Table 2). The designation of the administrative domain allows you to define the profile of the organization, the owner of the Internet server.

table 2

Some top-level domain names

TCP / IP data transfer protocol

The Internet operates and develops thanks to the use of a single TCP / IP data transfer protocol. The term TCP / I P includes the name of two protocols:

• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) - transport protocol ;

• Internet Protocol (IP ) - routing protocol.

TCP / IP protocol provides information transfer between computers on a network. Internet Protocol (IP), i.e. routing protocol provides routing of IP-packets, i.e. delivery of information from the sender computer to the recipient computer. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), i.e. The transport protocol provides splitting of files into IP- packets in the process of transfer and assembly of files in the process of receiving.

Email and newsgroups

E-mail is the most common Internet service. In order for an email to reach the addressee, it must, in addition to the text of the message, contain the email address of the recipient of the letter. The email address consists of two parts: username @ server_name

The username has an arbitrary character and is defined by the user, the server_name is strictly connected with the user's choice of the server on which he placed his mailbox.

The principle of work in newsgroups is not much different from the principle of working with e-mail. The user can send their messages to any newsgroup and read messages sent by other participants.

WWW technology

The rapid development of the Internet is largely due to the emergence of technology WWW (Word Wide Web ). The basis of this technology is hypertext technology, common to all computers connected to the Internet.

The essence of hypertext technology is that the text is structured, i.e. it highlights the link words. When the link is activated, a transition occurs to the text fragment specified in the link.

Internet servers implementing WWW technology are called Web servers, and documents implemented using WWW technology are called Web pages.

Creating Web-pages is carried out using hypertext markup language - HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). The basis of the technology used in HTML is that control characters (tags) are inserted into a plain text document, with the result that we get a Web page. The browser, when loading a Web page, presents it on the screen in the form specified by tags.

Using tags, you can change the size, shape and color of characters, determine the position of text on a page, insert graphics, animation, sound and video, etc. It is important that with the help of tags in the Web-page you can insert hyperlinks, including in graphic form. An HTML page is inherently a specially marked up text document. To create and edit it, you need to use a simple text editor, which creates a document that does not contain its own text formatting control characters.

Browsing Web-pages by using special browsers - browsers. Currently, the most common browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

Search for information on the Internet

You can find a web page on the Internet using the universal resource locator (URL –Universal Resourse Locator). The method of access to the document is determined by the information transfer protocol used. HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is used to access Web pages. To access FTP servers, a special file transfer protocol FTP (File Transfer Protocol ) is used, which allows you to transfer and receive files.

To search for information, special search servers are used which contain more or less complete and constantly updated information. Different search servers can use various search engines ( search engine ) to search, store and provide information to the user. However, it is common that by the time a user requests all information about Internet documents in a compact form is stored in the search engine database.

The available search engines can be divided into three groups:

• directories (thematic catalogs) of the Internet;

• general purpose search engines (index);

• specialized search engines.