SOCI 1101LIBRARY RESEARCH• Joan Taylor• Reference Librarian

SOCI 1101 Library Session

Steps to Selecting and Using the Best Resources !

• Keyword Searching vs. Subject Searching• Tips to Better Searching• Library of Congress Classification• Popular Magazines vs. Scholarly Journals• Find Articles!• Your turn to search

Steps to Keyword Searching

KEYWORDS

Everyday language

Easy to use

Flexible terms

Less accurate

The Topic “Solar panels”

• Look at your topic and possibly phrase it as a question.

What are the benefits of solar panels? OR Are there benefits of using solar panels?

Look for keywords and concepts from your research question or topic.• “solar panels” “benefits”

Brainstorm for other terms

Brainstorm for alternativewords.

Keywords: financial, benefits, solar panels

Alternative Keywords: cost, money, savings, advantages, solar energy, sun power

Examples of Keywords and Phrases

Category• Keywords• Basic Phrases• Proper names• Hyphenated words• Slogans, advertisements• Famous quotes• Titles

Example• Reconstruction• “solar panels”• (William Faulkner)• “mother-in-law”• (Can you hear me now?)• “to be or not to be”• (Where the Wild Things

Are)

DID YOU KNOW ?

BOOLEAN Operators:

AND = narrows (4,475 results) women and “hypertension”

OR = expands (80,683 results) Hypertension or “high blood pressure” NOT = excludes (76,208 results)

hypertension not pregnancy

DID YOU KNOW ?AND is automatically used by Google and many other search engines to combine terms.

So what’s the alternative to Keywords?

▪ Subjects (Controlled vocabulary)▪ Example:▪ Library of Congress (Assigns subject

headings for books and resources)▪ Topic: Power Resources

Broader heading - Renewable energy sources

Narrower heading -Solar energy

Library of Congress System

Library of Congress Classification for SOCIOLOGY

Effective Searching for A Topic • Keywords- Identify other related terms for your search.

• Subject headings- Use established words or phrases assigned to a topic. (We use Library of Congress subjects and classification).

• Thesaurus- Use a tool that helps to provide other ideas for search terms, such as an online subject or thesaurus index.

• Often found in the disciplines of education, medicine, psychology

SELECTING RESOURCES FOR YOUR RESEARCH

Popular vs. Scholarly Articles

Magazines

• Popular information• For casual readers seeking

general information.• May include bright covers

and advertising.• Name of author may not

be included.• Short articles.• No bibliographies.

Journals• Scholarly information• For researchers/professors

to stay current on a topic.• Illustrations include charts,

graphics to support article.• Always include the name of

the author(s).• Longer articles, footnotes. • Bibliographies.

GALILEO Main Search –Discover-Searches everything-Overview

Great GALILEO Resources for Sociology

Resource SCOPE/Content Types of ResourcesAcademic Search Complete

Multi-disciplinary-huge resource for many topics

Magazines, Newspapers, Journal articles, Images

JSTOR Multi-disciplinary-huge resource –not current publications

Journal articles, books

Sociological Collection Sociology, social behavior, culture, human interaction

Primarily scholarly journal articles

GenderWatch sexuality, religion, societal roles, feminism, masculinity, eating disorders, daycare, and the workplace

Magazines, newspapers, journal articles

Social Science Journals all areas of the social sciences

Journal articles

Academic Search Complete-Advanced Search

Searching in a specific publication

Your Search History-Evaluate Results

keywords, tools, limiters

Limit Search by Subject- specific topic-”RATES”• Example –Select RECIDIVISM rates

Scholarly journal citation with an abstract!

JSTOR-Great Tool for review of Older Existing Research

You can search by subject or discipline (Social Sciences)

GenderWatch

GenderWatch search result

Pdf fulltext

Evaluate All Information*

AUTHORITY Who is the author, curator, or publisher?

What credentials or affiliations does the author have? What are the author’s qualifications?

If this information is from a website: Can you tell the affiliation from the domain of the site?

.gov governmental

.edu educational

.org organizational

.com (personal or commercial)

*Nagel, Erin. “ENGL 1102: Composition.” LibGuide. CSU Library. Web. 18 Sept. 2012

Cite your Sources-Style Guides•

TO RECAP OUR SESSION!1. Think of keywords and alternative words for your topic

A) Boolean operators OR=expands AND=narrowsB) Use parentheses or quotation marks when searching for phrases.

2. “Use the tools” to help with your searches -- Special indexes such as a thesaurus or subject guide

3. “Use limiters” –such as by date, scholarly peer-reviewed, format.

4. “Popular vs. scholarly” Know the difference!

5. Evaluate ALL of your sources--- Books, journal/magazine articles, and web sources.

Thank you!

• For additional information see:

• http://clayton.libguides.com/soci1101

Questions?joantaylor@clayton.edu