Use a subject specific database
Southworth Library has access to dozens of databases, but when doing research for a particular class it can help to choose a database most relevant to that academic discipline. You can browse Databases by Subject or look at the research guide for your subject.
Develop search terms
Knowing how to structure a search starts with your search terms or keywords. These are the words and terms that you enter into the search bar. Remember that databases do not work like Google. You cannot type your entire research question into the search bar and expect the top results to be exact answers. Instead, search terms are taken from the main ideas of a topic. Writing out the research question and underlining or circling those words can help.
Example:
My research question is: "How do the positive mental health benefits of pet ownership affect the academic performance of college students?"
Identify the most important words. For our topic, those would be "mental health," "pet ownership," "academic performance," and "college students."
Sometimes the words we identify won't be how others talk about that idea. "Mental health" might be referred to as "mental wellness" or simply "wellness." It's important to brainstorm synonyms or related terms for the initial keywords you've identified. Listing them out is one way to do this, or tools like mindmaps can help. Conducting background research can help you develop these alternative terms.
Use Limiters
When on the results page, there are typically options on the left side to limit your results based on certain types of information. The options seen on ROOsearch are reviewed below.
- Availability: Where is the resource located? Is it a physical item in Southworth Library? Is it from a peer-reviewed journal? This can be most helpful when looking specifically for physical books vs. e-books, and when looking for peer-reviewed articles.
- Subject: Results are tagged with subject terms that show the main topics of the item. This can be helpful for narrowing results to a specific field of study, as well as for finding additional search terms that you might want to add to your search.
- Author/Creator: Who made the source? This can tell you some of the main scholars covering a topic. You might want to look them up to find more information and sources on that subject.
- Location: Where is a physical resource located within Southworth Library? The library has different collections located throughout the building. If, for instance, you want to specifically find graphic novels, you would select the Graphic Novels location to narrow your results to only graphic novels.
- Material Type: Are you looking for an academic article or a newspaper article? Are you looking for a book, or maybe for a video? This can be helpful when you want a specific type of item.
- Content Provider: What database is the result from? This can help you to identify the most relevant databases for your search. You may want to use the A-Z Database page to access that particular database and conduct your search there directly.
- Date: When were the items published? This is very helpful when looking for recent sources (ie: something published in the last five years) or when looking for items published in a specific time frame.
- Journal Title: Who published the items? This can be especially helpful when looking for newspaper or magazine articles from a specific publication.
- Language: What is the primary language of the source? The vast majority of our resources are in English, but other languages may be available. This can be helpful if you primarily speak another language, or are looking for information on a topic from another perspective.
- New Records: Find the absolute latest sources, from last week, last month, or the last three months.
