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Research Workshop

Page history last edited by George H. Williams 14 years, 1 month ago

General Advice

  • Don't wait until the night before an assignment is due to learn how these resources work. Spend some time now playing around with them so that you become familiar with their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their potential for unexpected glitches.

 

  • You should usually look for recently published material first, and then work your way back in time, if necessary.

 

  • Always take notes on your search activities so you do not have to repeat yourself.
    • Which resource did you search?
    • What search terms did you use?
    • How many results did each search return?

 

  • Always check first to see how many results are returned from your initial search. If you have too many, refine your search strategy by using the "advanced search" options. If you get 1,000 results in response to your initial search, for example, you might start refining by specifying that you're only interested in the last 10 years worth of material.

 

  • Save your search results electronically or email them to yourself. It's fine, of course, to write things down in a notebook, but doing so is more time consuming and puts the results of your searches into a format that you might lose or misplace. By contrast, you can access your email from anywhere.

 

  • Always browse the footnotes and references of the sources you find through these resources in order to find more material.

 

Workshop Outline

These notes are based on a workshop led by Dr. Drew Kearns <akearns@uscupstate.edu> of the USC Upstate Library

This workshop focuses on the database Academic OneFile:

"Academic OneFile is a comprehensive database provided by DISCUS that contains more than 8,000 journals, the majority of which are provided in full-text. It also includes hundreds of podcasts and news transcripts."

Using a web search engine vs. Using a library database

Web search engine

General observations:

  • If you do a basic search with something like Google, you search the entire text of all the documents on the web.
  • This will be a problem if you're looking for information that's primarily about your topic, rather than everything that happens just to mention your topic somewhere.
  • However, you can usually use the "Advanced Search" option to get better quality results.
  • Most people already know the basics of using a search engine to find information on the web, so they might not fully understand how searching a library database is different.

Advantages of a web search engine:

  1. Easy to use.
  2. Is accessible from anywhere: you don't need an account or a special password to conduct a search.
  3. Often provides millions of results to choose from, which can be great if your topic is relatively obscure.
  4. Usually provides fairly current information.

Disadvantages of a web search engine:

  1. Often provides millions of results to choose from, which can be overwhelming if you don't want to become the world's expert on your topic.
  2. Does not distinguish between reliable sources and unreliable sources.
  3. Does not often show you links to information contained inside high-quality databases if those databases require subscriptions. In other words, the best information can be made invisible to you.

Library database

General observations:

  • Most people have limited experience with library databases, so they require training and practice to use them well.
  • If you do a basic search with something like Academic OneFile, you can zero in on relevant and credible sources by choosing which "data fields" (more information on what this term means is below) are being searched. This strategy will allow you to narrow your results down to a manageable number.
  • If you do not use the right search terms, this kind of searching does not always lead you to the information you need.
  • However, you can almost always use the "Advanced Search" option to get better quality results.
  • You can also learn about which search terms you should use to get the information you need.

Advantages of a library database:

  1. Extremely powerful tool for targeting only that information you need.
  2. Provides reliable results (although there are exceptions to every rule) that will usually be considered acceptable for an academic paper.
  3. If you're on campus, a library database is easily accessible from any computer.
  4. If you search a library database, you do not have to search the entire text of the documents and sort through millions of results.
  5. The information contained in the database if filtered: only sources considered reliable for academic work are included (but there are exceptions, as with every rule).

Disadvantages of a library database:

  1. Requires time and practice to use correctly.
  2. If you're not on campus, a library database requires some extra effort to gain access, and sometimes the database kicks you out for no obvious reason.
  3. Doesn't always provide the most current information, depending how on how much time it takes for new information to be entered into the database
  4. Doesn't always provide you with full-text results, requiring you to take extra steps to locate the source you need. (You can use Journal Finder to take these steps: look for a link on the USC Upstate library homepage in the lefthand column.

More about how a library database works

  • An individual library database like Academic OneFile is made up of different "records."
  • Each record stands in for a document of some kind: the document might be a magazine article, a newspaper editorial, an article from an academic journal, a news story, a podcast, or several other things. Sometimes the record provides you with the full text of that document, and sometimes it doesn't. Academic OneFile is a good database for finding records that provide the full text
  • The searchable information for each record is contained in sections called database "fields" such as the following:
    • Author
    • Document title
    • Publication title
    • Publication date
    • Document type Newspapers, Magazines, Journals, Books...
    • Keyword You'll need to learn the correct words to use.
    • Subject You'll need to learn the correct words to use.
  • As a result, you can save a great deal of time by focusing on very specific kinds of records in order to find only the information you need. Consider these examples, all of which are possible with a library database:
    • Find all magazine articles published in 2008 on the subject of Spartanburg, South Carolina.
    • Find everything published in a newspaper on September 12, 2001 that uses the word "terrorist" in the headline.
    • Find all peer-reviewed articles published in the last 5 years on the subject of genetic engineering.
  • Using more advanced search strategies will save you a great deal of time and effort.

Different kinds of search strategies

Boolean searches

  • You can search more than one field at a time. using AND or OR or NOT. This is called a "boolean search."
    • Example 1: carbon AND footprint entered into two rows (joined by AND) of the keyword field will return every document with both of these words as a keyword.
    • Example 2: carbon NOT footprint entered into two rows (joined by NOT) of the keyword field will return every document with carbon in a field, but not if that document has footprint in a field. The number of documents will likely be smaller than in Example 1.

Exact phrase searches

  • You can search for an exact phrase by including multiple words within quotation marks
    • Example 3: "carbon footprint" will return only those documents with the phrase carbon footprint in a field. The number of documents will likely be smaller than in Example 2.

Nested searches

  • You can use different combinations of searching:
    • Example 4: (carbon OR ecological) AND footprint will return every document with carbon AND footprint as well as every document with ecological AND footprint

Searches with standard terms

  • Searching often involves figuring out the right words to enter into the database to find relevant information. Most academic databases use standardized terms to organize information. If you're not using one of those terms, you won't find the information.

How to narrow your results

  • The basic search might give you many more results than need.
  • Save time and effort by choosing "more search options" or click on "Advanced search" to narrow your results.

Finding "full text" resources

  • Limit search results to only those that provide the full text of the document rather than just a reference to the document.

Finding recent documents

  • Limit search results to only those that were published within a certain time range.

Specific kinds of publications

  • Limit search results to only particular kinds of publications. Look at the tabs at the top of your search results: they're labeled Magazines, Books, News, & Multimedia. Clicking on one of these tabs will show you only those results from those kinds of publications.
  • Use the function built into the database to email search results to yourself and/or to save them on your flash drive.
  • Remember: When the database tells you it knows how to save your search results for you in correct MLA or APA format, it might be wrong. Always check to see if the formatting is correct.

Video Tutorials

MIT TechTV: Database Search Tips

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