CONDUCTING RESEARCH: DATABASES
Background Knowledge:
- Database: an online collection of sources. One example of a database is JSTOR, a collection of academic journals.
- Journal: this is somewhat like an "academic magazine". Academic journals publish the research and essays written by college professors, authors, and researchers. Journals are peer-reviewed publications, which means that before an article is published, it is judged and edited by the author's colleagues in the same field or academic discipline. Authors of articles that can be found in academic journals are usually highly-educated experts.
JSTOR
JSTOR is a digital library of about 2000 academic journals, 19,000 books, and 2 million primary sources. JSTOR is a paid-subscription website, and whenever you are on campus, you will have automatic access to it. However, if you leave campus or move away from the school's wifi network, you will lose automatic access. You will need to sign in using username (kisjeju) and password (researcher).
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JSTOR Tips:
- Use JSTOR to find sources for school research projects, because you can comfortably assume that the information is credible!
- When searching for exact phrases, put them in quotes: "to be or not to be", "customer relationship management".
- When you want to exclude something from your search, use all-caps "NOT": "united states" NOT "united kingdom".
- When looking for historical documents, use the "date range" feature of advanced search to only search for items published before a certain date.
- If you get too many articles that are in foreign languages, use the language option of advanced search to view only English articles.
- Use the "journal filter" option of advanced search to only search for articles within a certain topic.
- You can't use Scrible to annotate a JSTOR article, so you should download a PDF of your article and annotate it using Adobe Reader on your computer.
Google Books
The library is probably the best place for you to find books about your topic, but if you struggle to find one there, you can search an online book collection. Google Books allows you to read full-text books online. When you cite these, you can cite them as a hard-copy book instead of as a website!
Books Tips:
- When using books to write a research paper, avoid reading the entire thing. Use chapter titles to identify chapters that are most relevant to your topic. Use the index in the back of the book to identify all of the pages that mention keywords related to your topic. Finally, use the "command-F" shortcut to search for keywords in a digital document.
- When searching on Google Books, select only books that have the "full view" option. Books with only a "preview" option will have pages missing. You can click on "search tools" and select "full view" to filter:
Practice:
Show Ms. G that you can practice all of these skills by completing this activity:
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