Unlike internet search engines, the library databases do not understand entire sentences, questions, or long phrases. You will need to select the most important words from your topic or research question to use in your library searches: the keywords.
Example Topic/Research Question: How does motivation influence student learning?
Keywords: motivation, student learning
Watch this tutorial to learn more about developing keywords for library searches.
Authors often use different terms to describe the same research idea; therefore, it is helpful to use synonyms or related words for the keywords you have chosen.
Try to think of at least one synonym for each of the keywords you have selected from your topic.
Example:
|
Keyword |
Synonym or Related Word |
|---|---|
|
motivation |
aspiration |
|
learning |
aptitude |
Most library databases offer built-in search tools that allow you to limit your results by the following:
Subject: Use them to find sources about that subject.
Date Range: Limit your search to sources published between specific years.
Peer Reviewed: Limit your search to scholarly journals.
Full Text: Make sure all of the results are available to read in full.
Look for limiters on the advanced search page or in your search results to find these tools and more.
It is important to evaluate the information you find in order to select credible resources to support your research.
When you use high-quality sources to back up your points, you demonstrate your own credibility as a writer, thereby contributing to the effectiveness of your argument. The best quality research builds on other high-quality research. This is true of both your own work and the work of professional researchers.
There are several factors to look for when evaluating a source’s credibility:
| Authority | Who is the author and/or publisher? Is the author/publisher reputable or does it have an established reputation in the discipline and/or field? Does the author/publisher have specific expertise or knowledge to publish on this topic? |
| Accuracy | Is the information or research accurate or valid? Can the same or similar information be verified by other sources? |
| Objectivity | Does the information express a specific point of view or opinion? Is the information written by an organization that supports a stated agenda? Is it based on factual evidence from research or experiment? Does the point of view affect the accuracy or reliability of the information? |
| Currency | What is the publication date? Is the date relevant for the subject area/topic? Is it too old? Could a more recently published source provide new and/or different information? |
| Audience | Who is the intended audience for the information? Is it written for a general readership, such as an article in a newspaper or magazine (popular sources)? Is it written for people who work in a specific industry (trade publications)? Is it written for a scholarly/academic audience (scholarly sources)? |
| Relevancy | Does the source meet the requirements for this assignment? Does it cover your topic comprehensively or does it only focus on one small aspect? |
The domain suffix of a website (the postscript at the end of a web address) can be a good indicator of the the website's authority and accuracy.
Watch this tutorial to learn more about evaluating sources for credibility.
Use this checklist to help you evaluate the credibility of websites as research sources.
Use the AND operator to connect your keywords to find only sources that mention all of your keywords. This will focus your search and give you fewer results.
Example: motivation AND "student learning"
Use the OR operator to search for a keyword along with its synonyms or related words. This will expand your search and give you more results.
Example: (learning OR aptitude)
Use the asterisk symbol (*) to truncate your keywords, or search for all of the various endings of a word. For example, truncating the keyword learning to learn* will tell the database to search for...
learn
learner
learners
learning
Use quotation marks around key phrases. This tells the database to search for the words all together as a phrase.
Example: "student learning"
Instead of searching for everything student and everything learning, you are searching for the exact phrase student learning.