Learning the principles of good research is a key component of digital fluency, and the freedom that comes with it. This requires expertise beyond the skills obtained with commercial search engines like Google or Bing. In conducting scholarly research, it is best to start with repositories of vetted information like academic databases and datasets. Often these seem more complex to use than free search tools, but their robustness allows for more and richer information than a tool designed to help you find a time for a movie or sporting event, or a place on a map.
The library offers a guide to research using these tools, describing what you can find and how you can best find it. These techniques include using specialized language to control your results (such as Boolean language like And, Or, and Not); placing limits on your results, such as only vetted (particularly peer-reviewed) material or only work produced within the last few years; and ways to seek out special types of information, such as primary sources (works created by the participants in the events they describe). The first page of the guide elaborates on these techniques. Then, once you have a set of reliable information, it becomes easier to begin the process of parsing and evaluating what you get back; and making informed decisions on what to include and what to reject.
The guide is multidisciplinary; starting with general instructions and then moving on to the specialized sources that serve needs of each academic field – after all, a business student using Mergent Online to calculate financial ratios has significantly different needs and techniques than a nursing student using UpToDate to make point-of-care decisions, who in turn is different from a criminal justice student using Nexis Uni to verify a previous case or law has not been subsequently overturned. Learning these specialized skills will set you up well within your career field, and those searching techniques will soon become second nature.
Additionally, instructional videos by IU East Librarians are included, to help you become a confident, general researcher. There are pages for the major disciplines taught at IU East – Business, Communications, Criminal Justice, Education, English and Literature, Fine Arts, Foreign Language, History, Informatics, Mathematics, Nursing, Political Science, Psychology, Science, Social Work, and Sociology.
If you need help with your research, don’t hesitate to Ask us! at iueref@iue.edu or click this button:
