Offline Option for Library Workshops: Offline 2: Search for Sources

Read or view the materials listed below and then take the quiz (link located further down the page). There is an optional section on the quiz to alert a mentor or instructor, that you name, that you satisfactorily completed the quiz (you won't be able to answer the quiz questions without doing the readings/tutorials).

Questions to consider as you work through the materials below:

• Why won't I find the "perfect" scholarly journal article on my topic?
• What search tools likely contain useful and reliable scholarly information for my academic writing?
• How do I format my search to find results that contain an exact phrase of 2+ words?
• How can I access full-text journal articles not available in the library's collections?
• What are "peer-reviewed" articles and how do I locate them in the library?

There is no one way to search the literature to find the most important sources related to your topic. However, there are some steps and habits of mind you can use to make the process more effective and efficient.

1. Spend some time brainstorming both possible narrower or related aspects of your topic, and developing a list of possible search terms: Brainstorm your topic and background reading with Wikipedia.
2. Approach your topic with an open and critical mind: be mindful of your own worldview and how innate human biases can blind us to some things.
   • Confirmation Bias (and How to Minimize It)
3. Give some thought to what kinds of sources will be useful to you. While scholarly journal articles and books (sometimes called monographs) will make up the meat of your sources, some topics may lend themselves to other types of sources such as government or non-governmental reports and white papers, data sets or statistics, and more: Publication Types. See also: Finding & working with Scholarly Sources.
4. What you type into a search box will depend both on your topic and what search tool (database) you are using. For example, if using the OneSearch (which searches many collections across all disciplines at once) to look for sources on stress among nurses, start with a search like this: stress and nursing. However, if using the CINAHL database (searches just the nursing literature) instead, you might not need to include 'nursing' in the search at all. Here are some general search tips:
   • ONLY type in words or phrases that concisely describe main concepts, with and between each concept (does not need to be capitalized).
     • opioids and treatment
     • diversity and Microsoft and training
   • Put double quotes around exact phrases of 2+ words.
     • “diversity training”
     • "Black Lives Matter"
     • "human resources management" and "risk mitigation"
   • Craft multiple searches to see what works and find the best results
     • opioids and teenagers and prevention
     • "prescription drugs" and adolescents and prevention
     • "opioid epidemic" and adolescents and "prevention programs"
5. ​​Try multiple search tools.
   • ​OneSearch (search box on the library home page) can be useful in many contexts, but isn't always the most accurate way to search the literature. 
   • Explore the Subject Guides ("All Library Guides" link in lower left of library home page) for relevant discipline-specific search tools and portals into reliable open Web sources.
   • Search inside the full-text of EBook content via EBook Central.
   • Explore non-traditional sources, such as:
     • Statistics and Data Sources
     • Primary Source Material
6. Use Reference Mining to explore the relevant literature
   • Reference Mining is the process of looking carefully at the list of cited references at the end of a relatively recent journal article directly related to your topic. Chances are, the author has done some of the leg work in identifying reliable, relevant sources and listed then in their bibliography. If you see something useful in a bibliography, copy-paste the title and use the library's OneSearch to locate it.
7. If you find an article or book chapter you need that is not accessible via the library, you can request  via Inter-library Loan (note: you cannot request entire books).

Work through the readings and tutorials above, and take this quiz:

• Quiz for Research Workshop 3: Search for Sources (after successful completion, your name will be sent to instructor you identify in the form)
• [Note that without a careful review of the readings and videos above you will probably not be able to answer many of the questions]