 Finding Scholarly Research on Your Topic

Your Research Journey…  You have, at this point, found information on your topic from general sources – news articles and the Internet.  Along the way, you have learned more about your topic.  Each source you used has had different kinds of information.  Hopefully, you have been able to answer the questions you started with.

Your Research Journey…  News articles provide updates about your topic.  The Internet provides a comprehensive overview of your topic.  Now, journal articles will present current scientific research being conducted on your topic, or one aspect of your topic.  You should be looking for a journal article that can provide factual, scientific information to answer one or more of your remaining research questions.

Your Research Journey…  Journal articles are VERY SPECIFIC documents. They are not written like articles, they do not tell a story, and they do not give broad overviews. They may only answer one specific question.  Journal articles, especially in the sciences, explain the hypothesis (theory) of the researchers. Then the article shows how the researches tested their hypothesis. At the end, the researchers explain what they learned from their experiment. Remember lab reports in middle school? A journal article is like a detailed version of that.

Your Research Journey…  A journal article will investigate ONE SMALL part of your broad topic.  You might not understand everything written in the article because it might be very scientific. If you can understand it generally, that is okay. But if it is very complex, you should find a different article.

An example of a journal article  Let‘s look at an example. Say my topic is prostate cancer. Here is an article on that topic. Please read the abstract and browse the rest of the article before continuing on to the next slides:  examplearticle.pdf examplearticle.pdf

Characteristics of Journal Articles  Notice the very specific purpose of the article: to review the effectiveness of three treatments for castration- resistant prostate cancer.  You might not know about these medications. That’s okay. You might not know what all these words mean. Be sure to use a dictionary to define as many as you can.  Notice the different sections of the article – there is an introduction, sections for each of the different treatments, a section devoted to the use of these treatments in therapy, tables, figures, a conclusion, and references.

Characteristics of Journal Articles  As you see the different sections, take note of how this shows the progression from theory, through experiment, to conclusion.  These researchers only looked at one tiny aspect of prostate cancer – three treatments.

So what can you learn from this article?  As a student researcher, someone interested in the issue, what can you learn?  You can learn about what treatments are available and how well they work.  You can learn about how doctors can implement these treatments.  You can learn a lot about how researchers go about finding treatments for certain medical issues.

So what can you learn from this article?  You can learn scientific details about the medical issue.  You can learn who prominent researchers in the field might be.  You can find other resources from the references section.

What can’t you learn?  You will not find any kind of encyclopedia-like information in the article.  You will not find general information on the medical issue.  You will not find information that an average person would be interested in.

 Beginning Your Search

 Now, let’s talk about the search you will do using either Gale Academic One File or EBSCO’S CINAHL.  For this example, we will use EBSCO’s CINAHL database to do an example search.  You have spent time conducting general research on your topic. To find something specific, and related to your interest, it is best for you to search for your article using two sets of keywords.

Beginning Your Search  Brainstorm some possible second keywords you would like to use.  Your first search term should be the name of your illness or the issue you are investigating  The second term should indicate what narrow subtopic within your topic you would like to know about

Beginning Your Search  For example, if you are interested in treatments for your medical issue you could do a search like:  “chronic fatigue syndrome” AND “treatments”  Or even more specific:  “chronic fatigue syndrome” AND “medication”  It is best to have an idea of what specific aspect of your issue you would like to learn more about

Beginning Your Search  When you go to search, try out a few different searches using different combinations of search terms.  Use the video tutorials I provided last week to help you with this, especially with the evaluation and selection process.

What to do when you don’t find an article you like?  Try thinking of synonyms and other words to use instead.  Try using more specific words if you get too many results, for example “fibromyalgia” AND “yoga” instead of “fibromyalgia” AND “exercise”  Try using more general words if you don’t get any or enough results, for example “prostate cancer” AND “alternative therapies” instead of “prostate cancer” AND “homeopathic medicine”  Revise keywords: Look in the titles and Major and Minor Subjects for suggestions (see next slide)

More on Revising Keywords  The words in the major and minor subject areas of the articles’ citations are all links to searches using that particular word. You can click on them to find more results using that word, or you can remember them, and start a new search using one of those words in combination with your other terms.

More on Revising Keywords  Use the suggested word option on the search screen. As you start to type in words, the database will offer selections. Try out different searches with these suggested words.  The suggested words are often best, since they are words the database already recognizes.  See the next slide for images.

More on Revising Keywords  For example, if you wanted to learn more about the ways yoga can help people with depression, I would conduct both searches for “depression” AND “yoga” as well as “depression” AND “yoga therapeutic use”. I might also try “depression” AND “yoga postures”. “Yoga jainism” or “yoga tantric buddhism” would only work if I wanted to look at the connection between depression and yoga and religion.  It is important to only choose keywords that suit your purpose.

Conduct a Publication Search  Search within one publication. If you notice you find a lot of search results that are from the same publication, consider browsing that publication for more of those articles till you find one you like.  You can do this by clicking on the name of the publication in the citation for the search result:

You can also use the “Publications” search page at the top Click on the “Publications” tab at the top Search by title for the publication

Conduct an Author Search  If you notice one author appears frequently in either your search results or the reference sections of articles, this could mean they are an expert in the field. You many want to search for their name using the “Author” option on the search screen or click on the link for their name in the citation. See following slide for screen shots of both of these methods.

Conduct an Author Search

Time Management  Research is time consuming.  Of course, no one wants to hear that.  However, it is true and you must set aside at least TWO HOURS for searching.  Good luck with your searching. Be sure to complete the forum questions and work on Assignment #5 this week.