Productive SearchingFinding Sources for Your Paper

What do you want to find?

•Relevant sources▫Related to your thesis statement

•Reliable sources▫From a trustworthy place (databases & news sources)

•Print sources▫Don’t forget books. They’re more in-depth and have stood the test of time.

Where should you look?

•Databases are the best option. ▫Information has been reviewed by an editor▫Someone was (likely) paid to write &

research for each article•Our Library Catalog (Destiny) for print

resources.•News sites or news search engines are

good backups.▫Try http://news.google.com▫Yourtopic AND BBC or Yourtopic AND ESPN

How do you find it?

Keyword Searches

•enter the “key” words you came up with into a search field

•this search looks for words anywhere in the record (the title and the body of the record)

•same process you use when you “Google”

WARNING!

•Keyword searches can produce A LOT of results

•For example,▫Abuse

Child abuse Animal abuse Civil rights abuse Etc.

Keyword Search Strategies to Focus Results

•Use quotation marks. ▫Surround words with them to search for

exact phrases. i.e. “global warming” instead of global

warming

Keyword Search Strategies to Focus Results

•Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)▫AND will search for entries that contain

both keywords▫OR will search for entries that contain one

of, the other, or both keywords▫NOT will return results that have the first

keyword, but not the second

•For example, ▫Abuse NOT child

How would the results of these searches be different from each other?

1.Teens and pregnancy2.Teens or pregnancy3.Teens not pregnancy

Subject Heading searches

•Subject Headings are predetermined categories in which databases place each article▫Subject headings must use terms as they

are found in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) list

•What they call it might not be the same as what you call it▫ie. cup vs. travel mug

Subject Heading Search Strategies•If you don't know the correct subject

heading…1. find at least one record relevant to

your topic by doing a Keyword search. 2. Select a record from your search results

and look at the Full record display. 3. Then use the subject heading(s) found in

the record that most closely match your topic for additional subject heading searches.

Use advanced searches to help youmanipulate the results so that you find what you’re looking for!

What do you do once you’ve found it?

Save it!

•You WILL have difficulty finding the same article again.

•EMAIL it to yourself and then you won’t have to repeat the process!

Cite it!

•Use your planner, easybib.com, or Noodle Tools.

•Use MLA format.•And, as a reminder, use in-text citations to

point your reader to the source of your information.

Works Cited

“Keyword Search.” Columbia University Libraries Online Catalog. Columbia University. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.

“Subject Search.” Columbia University Libraries Online Catalog. Columbia University. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.