When doing library research, follow the 20 Minute Rule: If you aren't finding any resources and aren't getting anywhere with your research after 20-30 minutes, it's time to ask for help from a librarian.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| abstract | A summary of the article. |
| citation (MLA) or reference (APA) | A listing of information you'll need to give proper credit for a source. |
| database | Any electronic collection of information – in this case, the library's books, articles, and videos. |
| full-text | The article is available in the database. |
| periodical | Anything that is published periodically, whether it's an academic journal, magazine, or newspaper |
| popular journal | A journal that contains articles written by journalists and targeted toward the general public (think newspapers and magazines). |
| scholarly journal | A journal that contains articles written by researchers and faculty for other researchers in their field. |
| trade journal | A journal published by and for professionals in a certain field of work. The writing is not as long and rigorous as in scholarly journals, but uses more of that field's jargon than a popular journal would. |
Identifying key concepts and what other words or phrases describe that concept you will get more meaningful results. Here is an example of how you can break down a question into concepts and their related phrases.
| Original Phrase | Related words or ideas |
|---|---|
| eyewitness testimony | eyewitness identification/misidentification, false testimony, police lineup, eyewitness errors, lineup identification, eyewitness evidence, eyewitness memory |
| wrongful conviction | innocence, false imprisonment, exoneration, false arrest, wrongful incarceration, criminal justice errors |
| how often | statistics, data, history, frequency, extent |
Library databases typically search a set of published works, but that doesn't mean those are always the types of publications you want, need, or are allowed to use. You can use the Source Type limiters to tell the database that you only want items from certain types of sources.
In the same way that IMDB.com tells you about a movie but doesn't give you access to the movie itself, the databases might have information to tell you about an item but not access to the item itself. You can tell the database that you only want items that you can access the item itself from that database by clicking on the "full text" limiter.
In some disciplines and for some topics it is important to use current information. You can tell the database to only give you results from a certain time period by limiting to a publication date range.
The subject limiter area is where you will find what tags are associated with the articles in your search results. Because these tags designate an article as being about that topic (rather than just mentioning the word) you can use these tags to tell the database that you only want articles tagged as being about that topic.
