Foundations of Literature Searching

Kyle Feenstra

Librarian
Education & Psychology

Sarah Clark

Librarian
Kinesiology & Rec Management,
Women's & Gender Studies

Laurie Blanchard

Librarian
Nursing

Part I

  • Searching the Information Landscape
  • Keywords vs. Subject Headings

(Break 10-15 min)

 

Part II

  • Search Strategies
  • Citation Management

(Workshop Assessment - 10-15 min)

SRTI Workshop Schedule

Where to Start Your Search
(The Information Landscape)

I'm looking for... Search Tool
Scholarly Books
Articles in Scholarly Journals
Research Studies and Datasets
Theses & Dissertations
Digitized Primary Documents		 Library Catalogue
Databases
Google Scholar
Print Books
Print Journals
Rare Books & Documents		 Library Catalogue
Archives
Academic Websites
Open Access Publications		 Google
Google Scholar
Policy Documents
Govt Publications
Statistics & Data
News Media		 Library Catalogue
Databases
Government and NGO websites
Google

Where to Start Your Search
(The Information Landscape)

Concepts, Keywords & Subject Headings

Industrial Revolution
Women
Great Britain
Wage Economy

Employment
Manufacturing Industry
Domestic Labour

 

Concepts, Keywords & Subject Headings

What went
wrong?

Concepts, Keywords & Subject Headings

Which Search is Better?

Natural Language
(i.e. Keywords)
 

Taxonomies
(i.e. Subject Headings)

Language that originates in and is derived from speech, communication, written texts, and other human interactions. 

Language that is designated for organizing information and facilitating information retrieval. 

Concepts, Keywords & Subject Headings

Concepts, Keywords & Subject Headings

Can you identify the taxonomies
in these tweets?

Concepts, Keywords & Subject Headings

Library
Catalogue

Subject Headings

Titles

Example: ERIC

  1. Make a list of keywords related to your research topic.
  2. Choose a relevant database from:
  3. Try a search using one of your keywords to see how many relevant articles appear in the results.
  4. Now search the database thesaurus for relevant subject headings. 
  5. Repeat your search this time using a subject heading. Compare the results with your keyword search. 

Gender Equality

 

 

Gender Equity

 

 

"Sex Fairness"

Activity: ERIC / PubMed / Academic Search Complete

  1. Make a list of keywords related to your research topic.
  2. From the Databases A-Z page choose from:
    • ERIC
    • Pubmed
    • Academic Search Complete
  3. Try a search using one of your keywords to see how many relevant articles appear in the results.
  4. Now search the database thesaurus (or MeSH terms) for relevant subject headings. 
  5. Repeat your search this time using a subject heading. Compare the results with your keyword search. 

Questions?