You are asked to find a peer-reviewed article from an academic journal. What does that mean? Watch this video by Univesity of Washington Libraries for a better understanding of journals and peer-reviewed articles.
Anatomy of a Scholarly Article: A guide from North Carolina State University Libraries which dissects a scholarly article.
How to Read a Scientific Paper: Video presentation that illustrates how to read through a scientific paper.
Reasons for Using Library Databases
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Websites |
Library Databases |
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There are ads |
There are no ads |
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Materials can be written by anyone |
Materials are more likely to be written by experts |
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Information may not be verified |
Information has been checked |
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There is no guarantee info has been updated |
Sources are constantly updated |
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Can feature any kind of writing |
Features only writing that has been published elsewhere |
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Material has various intended purposes (to entertain to persuade, to sell) |
Purpose is to provide information |
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Access is free |
Access is limited to library members, and those who pay significant subscription fees |
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Articles may cost money |
Once accessed, full article text is free |
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It may or may not be clear who the author is |
The author is clearly named |
(Palmer, E., 2015, p. 22) © 2015 by ASCD. Reproduced with permission
Palmer, E. (2015). Researching In A Digital World. Danvers, MA: ASCD.
Subject headings describe the content of each item in a database. Use these headings to find relevant items on the same topic. Searching by subject headings (a.k.a. descriptors) is the most precise way to search article databases.
It is not easy to guess which subject headings are used in a given database. For example, the phone book's Yellow Pages use subject headings. If you look for "Movie Theatres" you will find nothing, as they are listed under the subject heading "Theatres - Movies."
Keyword searching is how you typically search web search engines. Think of important words or phrases and type them in to get results.
Here are some key points about each type of search:
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Keywords
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Subjects
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