Research and research tips

Primary and Secondary Sources

 Primary and secondary sources vary by academic discipline. Here’s an overview:

 

Science     Primary Sources     Notes, results of scientific experiments including methods and tools used.  Observations. Discoveries.	Secondary Sources   Discussion of and comments on the notes, results, observations, discoveries in professional and popular journals, newspapers, books.
Social Science/Political Science     Primary Sources     Field research studies, interviews, surveys, case studies, experiments, observations and notes of social workers, psychiatrists, researchers, academic research by governments, international bodies, interest groups, educational institutes, or private individuals.  Also public laws, international laws, treaties, precedents set by courts (in the US), case law (in other countries), constitutions, testimonials (such as the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings in South Africa), and all public records (national and international).	Secondary Sources   Discussion, evaluation and comments of the primary source findings in professional and popular journals, newspapers, books, papers at conferences.
Humanities     Primary Sources Novels, poems, readings, short stories, scripts, literary theories.	Secondary Sources   Reviews, interpretations and other comments on the original art work or performance.
Visual and Performing Arts     Primary Sources Paintings, illustrations, sculptures, graphics, drawings, films, plays, theater performances, videos, art and performing art theories.	Secondary Sources   Reviews, interpretations and other comments on the original art work, performance, theories.
Business     Primary Sources Annual reports, market research, stockholder reports, business models and paradigms, letters, memos, e-mail, government reports such as from the Dept. of Commerce, Council of Economic Advisors, Federal Reserve Bank, technical studies and reports, computer data.	Secondary Sources   Comments and discussion of the primary sources in newspapers, magazines, books, scholarly journals, business journals.

 

 

 

 

Keyword/Boolean Searching

 

Boolean logic defines logical relationships between terms in a search. The Boolean search operators are and, or and not. You can use these operators to create a very broad or very narrow search.

·   And combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms. For example, travel and Europe finds articles that contain both travel and Europe.

·   Or combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example, college or university finds results that contain either college or university.

·   Not excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example, television not cable finds results that contain television but not cable.

 

The following table illustrates the operation of Boolean terms:

 

And	Or	Not
Each result contains all search terms.	Each result contains at least one search term.	Results do not contain the specified terms.
The search heart and lung finds items that contain both heart and lung. This narrows your search.	The search heart or lung finds items that contain either heart or items that contain lung. This expands your search.	The search heart not lung finds items that contain heart but do not contain lung. This narrows your search.

 

If you use parentheses with the Boolean operators, the terms inside the parentheses are processed first.  For example, the search (teenagers OR adolescents) AND homelessness would search for both “teenagers” and “adolescents” in combination with “homelessness.”

 

Narrowing the Search

 

Find too many articles that do not directly address your topic?

·         Add a second or third term linked by “and”:

                        “domestic violence” AND alcohol

                        “genetic engineering” AND ethics

 

·         Use quotes to designate an exact phrase:

Putting quotes around combinations of two words or more ensures you will only find those words in COMBINATION in THAT EXACT ORDER. This will eliminate articles that use the words separately.        

 

            “The Merchant of Venice”               “genetically modified foods”

 

·         Click the “Subject” arrow in the left-hand menu and choose to search for a more specific term within your current results (EBSCO databases only)

           

·         Use limiters

 

o   Full text: finds articles that are available in full from the database that you can access immediately. If you do not check the box next to “full text,” your results will most likely include ILL (interlibrary loan) sources or sources found at other libraries.

o   References Available: finds only articles that include bibliographic citations for sources used by the author(s). This usually limits results to academic journals and other scholarly articles.

o   Scholarly (peer reviewed) journals: eliminates sources like magazine and newspaper articles and pulls up only academic journals

o   Published Date: limits results to periodical articles published within whatever range of time you designate.

o   Publication: limits search only one specific journal, magazine, or newspaper. For example, if you enter “Time,” only articles published in Time magazine will appear in your results list.

o   Publication Type: limits results to a specific sort of periodical.

o   No. of pages: eliminates longer or shorter, e.g. >2

 

Broadening the Search

Finding too few articles? Try these tips.

 

·         Include synonyms in your keyword search:

 

                        (art OR painting) and (Native Americans OR Indians)

 

·         Use truncation: if your search term has multiple possible endings (like censor, censorship, censoring, etc), truncate the term where the various endings would occur and add an asterisk. This will give you results that begin with those letters but have various endings:

                        censor* and “first amendment”      computer* AND medic*

 

·         Try a broader subject:         

                        marine mammals (rather than “dolphins”)

 

·         Use the Expanders on the search page: Selecting “Also search for related words” will use a computer-generated list of synonyms for your search terms. Selecting “Also search within the full text of articles” will search for your keywords within the article as well as within the abstract.

 

            Reminders

·         Use any keyword search you can think of to get some articles

·         Avoid small keywords like prepositions, articles, pronouns, etc.

·         Avoid possessive apostrophes

·         Use singular, since the databases will automatically also search for plural

·         Anything underlined and in blue is a link! Click on it to see where it takes you.

·         Fewer keywords = more results