Library web site
- the quickest tour ever: COVID-19, Library reopening, books, articles, journals, theses, Interlibrary Loan
Examples of research
- Gandy, K. M. (2019). Psychological Empowerment as Mediator Between Servant Leadership and Generation Z Religious Engagement in Southwest England (Order No. 28022191). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2427310833).
- Page 20
- Davis, D. E. (2019). Strong Black Women, Depression, and the Pentecostal Church (Order No. 13807317). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2195541041).
- Page 23
- Doing a literature review
Database searching tips
- Developing a research question: for graduate students
- Consider word variations and synonyms; think about how others might refer to your ideas
- e.g, child death, perinatal death, neonatal death, stillbirth, sudden infant death, etc.
- Better searching using AND, OR, NOT
- AND (all terms) OR (one of the terms) NOT (exclude terms)
- Proximity searches (depends on database, e.g, N#, or NEAR/#
- Limit or expand terms
- "quotation marks" (exact) truncat* (truncate, truncates, truncated, truncation, etc.)
- Employ search limiters (available limiters depend on the database)
- peer reviewed, article type, date, note subject terms assigned to the records
- Identify key publications and authors
- note citations, and cited references, repeated author names
- Document and track everything you do in the steps above
too many search results?
- if you get too many search results, use narrower or more specific search terms
- e.g. “christianity” instead of “religion” (or other faith traditions)
- try adding more concepts to your search
- e.g., “canada” (or another specific country) AND “religion” AND immigration)
too few search results?
- think in terms of broader categories (“religion” rather than “hinduism”)
- add alternate terms for each concept (“immigration" OR “emigration”)
- always review bibliographies; one author can lead you to others in the field
Choosing a Library Database (to find articles)
- Why can't I just use Google Scholar?
- what is Proquest and what is EBSCO?
- Start with Omni
- use Articles, date, language, and online limiters
- results come from all disciplines, which is both positive and negative
- ATLA Religion Database
- contains bibliographic records of academic articles in the area of religion
- Sociological Collection
- includes Sociological Abstracts and Social Work Abstracts
- If you already know the title of an article, you can search for it in Omni
Books
- Search Omni to identify books at Laurier (COVID: requests to other libraries not possible)
- limit to "Available Online"
- limit to "Books and eBooks"
- Search within ebook collections to search within the full text of eBooks
- as opposed to searching just the title in Omni
note about ebooks
While Omni contains a catalogue record (author, title, etc.) of our eBooks, an Omni search does not search the full text of each book. Instead, you need to visit and search the various sites where our eBooks are stored. Some examples include:
- eBook Academic Collection
- Hathitrust Emergency access; you still need to login even if you go through the Laurier Library link
- Proquest Ebook Central
- Scholars Portal Books
- see also
Remember other types of resources
click on Research Materials at the top of this page to see the other types of sources you might want to use, including videos, theses, and statistics.
Predatory Journals
- Check for publication integrity before misconduct (Nature, Jan 7, 2020)
- The undercover academic keeping tabs on ‘predatory’ publishing (Nature, March 16, 2018)
- How Academia, Google Scholar And Predatory Publishers Help Feed Academic Fake News (Forbes, Dec 16, 2016)
- Examples: Ideal Journal of Psychology and Theology; International Journal of Transformative Research
- Beall's list (wikipedia page)
- Think. Check. Submit.