ARC199: Keywords and Evaluating Sources
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
Evaluating Sources
Questions to ask to determine the credibility of a source:
- What are the authors credentials?
- What is the purpose of the source? Identify the specific question the research aims to answer.
- What is the scope? What is this article about, and how far does it go? What topics are included or excluded?
- Who is the intended audience?
- Who published the source?
Pay attention to biases:
- Who funded the research - the funders might have a vested interest in the outcome of the research.
- Who is missing from the research conversation?
- Check methodology section to see who participated/who was excluded.
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.
- What to look for: author affiliations, abstract, methodology, results, bibliography
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. . Ex. GA Document, Architect, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Planning Magazine
News/Newspapers:
The main goal is to provide information to a broad audience.
- Authors are usually free lance writers or journalist, but at times can be scholars.
ex. Buffalo News
How to read a research article:
If asked to review an article, read over carefully:
1.Read critically - Did the author answer the research question? Was the problem solved? Are there any questions that arose from the reading that the author did not answer or solve? Was the data presented logically and understandably? Are there any omissions or limitations?
2. Read creatively - Were the ideas presented informative? If you were to continue the research, what other points would you address?
3. Take notes and underline key points made by the author.
After reading the article, can you summerize it succinctly?
Write down the main idea and the supporting statements or subpoints of the main idea.
Scholarly (peer-reviewed) journal articles follow a structure and typically contain these features:
- 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. Understanding the tables and charts in the results section is extremely important in understanding the article.
- Discussion: 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?