This document provides an overview of how to effectively research for an academic assignment. It discusses interacting critically with information by considering factors like an author's authority and a source's context, age, and design. It also outlines different types of academic sources like scholarly versus popular literature and primary versus secondary sources. Key search strategies are explained, including using Boolean operators and a database's controlled vocabulary. The document concludes by explaining the assignment will have students find and cite sources on a topic using these research skills.

1. NREM 204
Library Session
Susie Wilson
Data Services Librarian

2. Hello!
I am not a biologist
The t.rex is my favourite animal
I am, however, your subject librarian.
Today we’re going to learn some critical
thinking and research skills to help you
complete your assignment.
Image retrieved from: https://imgur.com/gallery/UAUDW

3. 1.
HOW DO YOU INTERACT WITH
INFORMATION?

4. How we seek out
information impacts the
information we get

5. How can we determine the
“good” information?
• Does it match what you know to be
true? Who does it reference?
• Who is the author? Publisher?
• What is the context of the writing?
• How old is it? What is “old” in this
particular medium?
• Broad? Narrow?
• How does it look?
ACCURACY
AUTHORITY
CONTEXT
CURRENCY
COVERAGE
DESIGN

6. 2.
ACADEMIC SOURCES
What to use when (and where to find it)

7. Types of Resources
• Scholarly Vs. Popular literature
• Primary Vs. Secondary sources

8. Popular literature
• Not peer reviewed
• Written by journalists
• Topics are typically broad
• Can contain advertisements – often
printed in colour on glossy paper
• References, abstracts, and
bibliographies are notably absent

9. Pros:
- Often very current
- Offers a wide range of perspectives
- Appeals to a broad audience
Popular literature
Cons:
- Not peer-reviewed or scholarly
- Author often lacks expertise
- Lack of supporting evidence

10. Scholarly literature
• Peer reviewed
• Authors are academics/experts
• Original research topic
• Citations and bibliography are included
• No advertisements, plain design

11. Components of a scholarly article
• Abstract/introduction
• Literature review
• Methodology
• Results
• Conclusion/discussion
• Bibliography/references
Abstract

12. Pros:
- Written by and for experts/scholars
- Often very specific and detailed
- Searchable via scholarly database
- Contains bibliography of sources
Scholarly literature
Cons:
- Sometimes specificity does not
allow for an overall picture of a
particular topic
- Sometimes requires extensive
existing knowledge of a topic to
fully understand

13. Secondary sources
• Do NOT contain original data
• Interpreted or summarized, often in
handbooks, encyclopaedias, and
dictionaries
• A good place to start for an introduction
to a subject
• Textbooks should, in general, be
considered a secondary source

14. Primary sources
• Contain original data
• First appearance of research
• Not yet interpreted, condensed, or
evaluated

15. Important note!
• We cannot draw a bright line for which
formats are primary vs. secondary
sources
• Articles in databases, for example, can
be either
• Which section in an academic article will
help you determine if it is primary vs
secondary?

16. 2.
Search strategies

17. To do the best searching, you have to learn
the language of the database

18. First concept: Boolean operators
• We use OR for related terms
when we want to broaden our
results
• Example:
• We use AND to combine different
concepts and make our results more
specific or narrow

19. First concept: Boolean operators
* Or ?
• These are wildcards used to truncate your search (which one to use depends on the database)
• Will search all words starting with the root
• Example: Book* will search book, books, booked, booking, etc…
“ ”
• Use quotation marks to search a group of words as a phrase
• Example: “United States”

20. Second concept: thesaurus or controlled
vocabulary
• Searching keywords will definitely get you results, but these results are limited by the specific language you
choose to use
• Many databases have a thesaurus, or a controlled vocabulary, of specific terms assigned to articles by indexers
• Using these terms to search will allow you to find other results than a simple keyword search

21. 3.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT
Let’s turn what we’ve learned into an excellent grade

22. We are going to:
1) Find a journal article from a citation
2) Use open government resources to
find out more about our topic
3) Use search strategies in proprietary
databases to get additional
information
4) Cite all our sources using CSE

23. What you need to be able to do:
• Identify the key components of a citation
Festa-Bianchet, M., J.C. Ray, S. Boutin, S.D. Côté, and A. Gunn. 2011.
Conservation of caribou (Rangifer tarandus) in Canada: an uncertain
future. Can. J. Zool. 85(5): 419–434.
Authors Year
Title
Journal Title Volume
Issue
Pages

24. You can find a specific article

25. Or browse the journal title

26. Moose. [Image]. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/assembly/view/9886.