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FYS 100-19: Is College Worth It?: Step 3 - Finding Sources

A collection of resources and tips for FYS 100-19

Recommended Databases

Search Mechanics

Now that you have your topic and question in hand (or close enough to continue searching, at least), the next step is to break it down into concepts and keywords.  We’ll be using these keywords to construct a search in scholarly article databases such as Academic Search Complete.

  1. Take your topic or research question
    We’ve refined the question to be more specific at this point, so you can focus your search and reduce the amount of irrelevant results that would clutter up your searches.

    Does the return on investment for a bachelor's degree in the humanities justify the rising cost of tuition and student loan debt in the United States today?

  2. Break it down into its core concepts
    Identify the core concepts.  These can come from your research question or from the background reading you’ve done.  Avoid words like effect and impact, as those words are used often and would only make your results harder to parse.

    Does the return on investment for a bachelor's degree in the humanities justify the rising cost of tuition and student loan debt in the United States today?

  3. Identify a few synonyms for each concept
    This is the most important step.  The search engine is very literal and will not search for what it thinks you mean, only what you type in.  So we need to list the variations or synonyms ourselves to make sure we are not missing anything


    Bachelor's degree = Bachelor's degree or college or university or higher education
    Cost = Cost or tuition or student loans or student loan debt
    Return on Investment = Investment or ROI or market
    humanities = humanities or humanities major or humanities education or English major or philosophy major

After breaking down your question into keywords, we take them to one of the recommended databases and start searching.

 

 

Using the keywords from the previous step, we can construct a search that will try to find articles that contain all of these words.  Use one concept per box.  The more words we add, the smaller the number of results will be.

These databases work a little differently than open web search engines like Google.  The most important thing to remember is that these databases are very precise and will only look for the words we use.  If you are not finding anything useful, then we’ll need to try different words.  Which is why we spent some time figuring out other synonyms ahead of time.

 

 

We can use OR to expand our search and look for multiple words at the same time, making sure you are not missing or overlooking anything.  Between AND and OR, you should be able to find focused results that are relevant without missing anything.

Too few results?

  • Review your keywords.  There might be better or more commonly used options in this discipline.  Look at a relevant article and dissect it to see what words they are using.
  • You might be using too many keywords.  Start removing them until the results grow to acceptable numbers.
  • You might not be in the right database, or you might be in a smaller database.  Check what other options you have (and if you cannot find any other databases, you can always use EasySearch).

Too many results?

  • Add more concepts.  You have much more room to work with, so don’t be afraid to add more sets of keywords to your search.
  • Review how much you expanded the search with OR.  Some words can add a lot of results without really making them more relevant.  Find these generic words and cut them.
  • Use the filters on the left-hand side of the results to refine the results further.  “Subject” in particular can be helpful.

Results not relevant?

  • Review your keywords.  There might be better or more commonly used options in this discipline.  Look at a relevant article and dissect it to see what words they are using.
  • Try to find one article that is in the neighborhood of your topic (or at least the broader discipline).  From there, you can dissect the abstract and the article itself to find new concepts and keywords you can use in your search.
  • Talk to a reference librarian for advice.  They have the expertise to diagnose your search strategy and help you find what you need.

Research Help

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Research is Messy, Part 2

Take a moment to see how your research is going.  If things feel more difficult than they should be, you might need to go back to a previous step and refine your question or keywords.  When you encounter a setback while researching, remember to not be hard on yourself and take a little time to consider your next steps.  Above all else, do not panic.  You can always talk to a librarian to help get unstuck.

Interlibrary Loan

No full text available?  Only have the citation?  You can use EasySearch or the Journal Finder to see if we have the article in a different database.  If we do not, we can still order it for you through Interlibrary Loan.

UMU Interlibrary Loan Form