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AED199: Research

Key library links

  • Everything – the tab is a great place to start searching through the library’s resources in one simple multidisciplinary search interface. The results will display books, articles, government documents, etc.
    **To find full-text articles that are not available in other databases or online, use Everything and select Everything UB + SUNY + Worldcat, type in the title of the article (title in quotes), then Search, on the left side check Under Refine Your Results, click on Expand My Results, then Search - this will expand your search and your article will appear indicting it is not available but you can use Delivery+ to obtain it. (make sure you are logged in). 
  • Libraries' Catalog – locate any item that is available in our libraries, including books, journals, newspapers, and audio/visual materials.
  • Journals- is a database of electronic journals that are indexed in databases or found online. (Cannot search for articles, citation is needed)
  • Reserve - or Course Reserve: a collection of books or articles (pdfs) set aside at the Circulation Desk by your professor.
  • Research Tips – an online guide designed to help you perform research at the University at Buffalo’s University Libraries, includes citation help. Center for Excellence in Writing - 209 Baldy Hall
  • My Account & Delivery+ –  use for book renewal and interlibrary loan. Journal articles and book chapters are delivered electronically to your email and physical items are made available for pick-up at the UB library of your choice. (free of charge)

Borrowing/Loan Periods: Your UB Card serves as your library card. Current UB students, faculty and staff may use their cards to check out books and other materials at any campus library.

Self-check out kiosk/Check-out App - instructions for downloading the app and using the self-check out kiosk.

UB Print Anywhere: UB students receive a semesterly quota of free pages to print assignments at any of 40 print station kiosks. Learn how to easily print your assignments from any computer, a computing site, your smartphone, a USB drive and more.

Keyword searching

Keyword searching:

Keywords break down your topic or research question into the overall main ideas; these main ideas become simple keywords which you may use to search a library database. The keywords you choose for searching have a large impact on how many relevant records are retrieved.

TIP : Use a thesaurus to help you find synonyms for your keywords

Combining your Keywords Ven Diagram of Boolean Operators A and B A or B A not B

Articles

Understanding the research process and the structure of a research article will help you to identify scholarly articles.

Scholarly/peer reviewed articles

  • A formal process in journal publishing  
  • A group of reviewers and editor evaluate the article for quality and accuracy.
  • the content in scholarly articles analyze, review, and interpret a primary sources (raw data) or other secondary sources

Anatomy of a scholarly article:

  • Abstract: an overview of the entire article’s content. It gives a brief description of the problem or hypothesis, the participants, methodology, statistical analysis, results of study, and the implications of the study.
  • Introduction: Background to the research topic/problem and identifies research questions (purpose statement).
  • Methods: A detailed description on how the data was collected and what instruments/measurements were used.
  • Analysis: Explains how the data was analyzed.
  • Results: The findings or results of the research problem/study – usually in graphs or charts.
  • Discussion/conclusion: The implications of the results, comparing results to other studies, hints to new research needed.
  • References: The cited articles used throughout the paper. Could also include a literature review or the literature review might be detailed in a section after the introduction.

Quick overview of an article: -Identity: Who, what, when, where?
Who is the intended audience? How were the research questions identified and answered? How new/old is the literature on the topic? Are there subtopics within the article?

Notes to take about the article: -Words or ideas that repeat themselves -Conflicts or contradictions in the information -How is the topic relevant to your research question?

Trade Journals: fall between the category of magazines and journals, the focus is on industry, a product, or business. Written by experts in the field or a member of an society or organization.

Popular magazines: opinion based - ex. Time magazine --- public opinion on a topic

Finding articles