Research Strategies
Have your teachers assigned a project that requires research and you can't find what you need? Take a look at the strategies, videos and links below for help. Remember, researching takes time so plan accordingly.
KeywordsKeywords are the words you will use to find information about your topic. Using general keywords will return more results and specific keywords will find few results. For example, the keyword dog or canine will return many more results than the key word poodle. The librarians at Johnson & Wales University in Denver created the helpful video below.
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Boolean Search OperatorsUse the Boolean search operators AND, OR and NOT to combine your keywords for more concise results. For example, dog AND poodle will find all the resources with the both the words dog and poodle on the page.Searching dog NOT poodle will return all the resources with the word dog but omitting any that also have the word poodle in it. Finally, searching dog OR poodle will find all the resources with the either the word dog or poodle or both. This will give you the most results. Watch this video below from the Carnegie Vincent Library for more help.
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Google can be a very effective research tool. Google Advanced Search and Google Scholar will help to find more accurate results and scholarly articles. Watch the videos below for more information.
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EVALUATING RESOURCES
Always be aware of the information you find. Who wrote it? Is there bias? Is it current? Is it correct?
Check out this awesome video on evaluating websites from the GCSC Library