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PSC 500: Searching for Resources

This guide is for PSC 500 classes.

Starting Your Research

You can search for resources before choosing a topic. Searching for resources ahead of time helps you understand the context of your discipline and possible topics. You can make sure that your potential topic has fitting resources before you commit to that topic.

After you choose a topic, then you will need to search for resources that provide information on that topic. You will use the resources you found to structure your argument and to write your paper.

The suggested order is:

  1. Preliminary research. You search about your topic before you commit to it. Ask your peers and subject librarian if you cannot find resources.
  2. Choose your topic.
  3. Research for resources about your topic. Look over your resources and structure your argument using the information you have found.

You can find resources by searching a database, an online journal, or Google Scholar.

A database is a collection of several journals that you can search all the same time. An online journal can be browsed or searched like a database. Google Scholar is the more scholarly version of Google. When using Google Scholar, you will get the widest variety of search returns, but it is more likely that some of your search returns will not have any full-text available (You will not be able to actually read the article).

How to Create a Search Query

A database is searched by creating a search query. A search query is the combination of search terms, filters, and code that you type or select before clicking the search button.

  • Search terms are the words or phrases you want the search feature to look for.
    • Different databases search different parts of the text. Some databases, like JSTOR or newspaper collections, only do a full-text search. Their search features will only pull items that have those phrases in the actual text.
    • Other databases, like Academic Search complete, will search the actual text and the description of the text.
    • Many databases have multiple textboxes where you can enter multiple search terms at once. You do not need to put a term in every textbox.
  • Filters are selections built into the search feature. You can choose different filters to narrow down your results. Common filters are by publication date or by language.
  • Code includes any special terms or punctuation to add to your search. Some search features might not understand every code.
    • ? or * are commonly use to truncate your searches. This means that a search for: read* will really search for any word that starts with read. The articles you get shown might contain the words "read," "readers," or "readmit".

This is an example of a search in Academic Search Complete:

Screenshot of Academic Search Complete search function. Two terms are entered, "cooking shows" and "health behavior."

This is an example of a search in JSTOR:

Screenshot of a search query in JSTOR. The search terms are "Native American" and "Taxes."

Tricks for Choosing Search Terms

Using Your Research Question

You can turn your research question into search terms. This is a good way to make sure that you are looking for resources that relate to your paper's scope and topic. 

Identify the important words or terms in your research question. These are more likely to be the nouns that you use to specify the scope of your topic. 

Write out each important word/term as it appears in your research question. Next to the term, list synonyms. You can also search words that mean the same thing. 

You can use our digital search term worksheet to turn your research question into search terms.

Using an Article You Like

When you find an article you like, look at that article's keywords. These are the words the database attaches to the article. They are usually written underneath the article's listing in your search results. 

Different databases use different keywords. By reusing the keywords that the database likes, you are learning to speak that database's "language".

Using Search Suggestions

Some databases will give you suggestions for search terms when you start typing in a search term textbox. You can select those suggestions if you want. Of course, you can always type out your own text to search, but these suggestions are terms that the database absolutely recognizes. 

Often, the suggestions will be several terms in the same box, all separated by or. This means that the search engine will search for all those terms at once.

Always check before you select a string of terms. Some of the terms might not be equivalent for your research topic!