Overview of Secondary or Text-Based Research

Researching for information to learn more about a topic, to challenge what you know, or to support your opinion can be a daunting challenge.  Where can you find information?  How do you search for it?  Can you trust what you find??

The internet has made this process much easier by putting more material right at our fingertips — rather than spending hours at the library searching through physical books or microfiche, you can use a search term to comb through all sorts of mediums to locate more relevant results in just minutes!

However, finding relevant sources that are also reliable is a challenge presented with new technology.  This chapter introduces you to different types of sources and how to begin using the university library in your research.

Dive into any topic and you will quickly learn how much information is out there and can feel overwhelming.  However, knowing the key differences in the types of sources and where they can be found will make research an easier and rewarding task. The first step is knowing what types of sources are required for the essay such as only using scholarly and peer-reviewed sources. This can quickly narrow down the amount of information to sift through. But let us look at the differences between scholarly versus general sources.

Popular, Scholarly, & Professional Sources

Considering the intended audience—how expert one has to be to understand the information—can indicate whether the source has sufficient credibility and thoroughness to meet your need.

Popular – Popular books, newspapers and magazines (such as The Washington Post, the New Yorker, and Rolling Stone) are meant for a large general audience, are generally affordable, and are easy to purchase or available for free. They are written by staff writers or reporters for the general public.

Additionally, they are:

• About news, opinions, background information, and entertainment.
• More attractive than scholarly journals, with catchy titles, attractive artwork, and many advertisements but no footnotes or references.
• Published by commercial publishers.
• Published after approval from an editor.

Scholarly – Scholarly books and journal articles (such as Plant Science and Education and Child Psychology) are meant for scholars, students, and the general public who want a deep understanding of a problem or issue. Researchers and scholars write these articles to present new knowledge and further understanding of their field of study.

Additionally, they are:

• Where findings of research projects, data and analytics, and case studies usually appear first.
• Often long (usually over 10 pages) and always include footnotes and references.
• Usually published by universities, professional associations, and commercial publishers. They are often behind a “paywall,” which means that they’re not publicly accessible on the internet. Instead, they need to be accessed via a university library or similar institutional membership.
• Usually published after approval by peer review, which means that each article in the journal was evaluated by scholars with credentials similar to those of the author. Often, articles have undergone multiple rounds of revision based on peer review.

Professional – Professional publications (such as Plastic Surgical Nursing, HVAC & Refrigeration Insider, and Music Teacher) are meant for people in a particular profession, and are often accessible through a professional organization. Staff writers or other professionals in the targeted field write these articles at a level and with the language to be understood by everyone in the profession.

Additionally, they are:

• About trends and news from the targeted field, book reviews, and case studies.
• Often less than 10 pages, some of which may contain footnotes and references.
• Usually published by professional associations and commercial publishers.
• Published after approval from an editor.

Using Databases

You are already comfortable with using Google and other search engines, so why take the time to learn about library databases? While it may take some getting used to initially, library databases are far superior for academic research and can provide lots of pertinent results in a fraction of the time you’d need to find the material in a search engine.

Here are some other reasons that databases are so valuable:

• You can access tons of scholarly journal articles, but also find books, reference book articles, popular magazine articles, and newspaper articles
• Databases don’t have sponsors, pop-ups, or advertisements.
• All material in a database is evaluated for accuracy and credibility by subject experts and publishers.
• Databases are reviewed and updated regularly.
• Library database subscriptions are paid for through your library so you shouldn’t have to pay for articles.
• The search capabilities enable you to search for focused results.
• Published content from journals, magazines, newspapers, and books does not change.
• Most material remains in the database for a significant length of time and can be easily retrieved again.
• Many databases include a citation tool that will automatically generate an APA or MLA style references for the article you select. You may still need to “tweak” this citation but these tools serve as a good starting point for citing your articles in a particular format.

Database Searching

Research databases don’t search like Google. One major difference is that not all databases let you search with everyday or  “natural language” terms. Learning a few tricks and search strategies will help you find more relevant results. You’ll want to begin by boiling your topic idea down into a few key concepts and terms. For example, if your paper is about the mental health of immigrants in school settings, you would search for keywords like mental health, immigrants, and school.

Next, you’ll want to think of synonyms for those words and more precise terms so that you can try different approaches to your research. For example, mental health might also be well-being, psychology, or mental state, or it could be a specific mental disorder such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, or drug or alcohol abuse. Immigrants could also be refugees or migrant workers, or you could focus on a specific group of immigrants. Similarly, school could also be written as education, academics, or more precisely as elementary school, high school, or college.

Database searches enable you to use Boolean operators to specify what you are searching for. You could type in mental health AND refugees into the search bar to narrow your results to things that only contain both of those concepts. You can use the operator OR to broaden your results to search for mental health AND refugees OR immigrants. You can also add in quotation marks to search for exact words or phrases.

AND – If the main idea contains two or more ideas, you’ll want to use AND to combine those terms in your search statement. To look for information about spiders as signs of climate change, you’ll want to have both terms in the search and perform an AND search. That’s what automatically happens in search engines such as Google and Bing unless you tell them to do something different by using OR,NOT, or-.

OR – If the main idea has several synonyms, use OR to combine them. Most search tools search for all terms (AND) by default, so you need to use the operator OR between terms to let them know you want to find any of the terms not documents with all the terms. For instance, in the previous example of Latino small business growth, we would want to also use the term Hispanic.

NOT – If the main idea has a common use you want to exclude, use NOT to exclude that word. For example, if we were looking for information about illegal drug use we would want to exclude prescription drugs from the search results. This is commonly done with NOT or the use of the minus (-) sign. In Google, to exclude a word use-word with no space between the – and the word you want to exclude. If you put a space in there, Google will not exclude the word.(When using some search tools, you have to use AND NOT before the word to exclude it.)

Refining Search Results

Databases also have options to revise your search by using limiters, such as searching for only peer-reviewed articles, within a specific date range, a specific type of source, or by subject.

This video on Refining Search Results (10 minutes) shows you how you can search effectively in databases.

Navigating the SDSU Library

If it has been a while since you have used the library or if you have not yet used the library website, you might wish to watch this 3-minute video on Navigating the SDSU Library Website.

Here is the link to access the SDSU Library Homepage.

Using One Search

This short video (2 minutes) shows you how to use the One Search feature at the SDSU Library.

Using One Search at the SDSU Library

Using Specific Databases

Because One Search includes all of the resources in the SDSU Library, it is easy to be overwhelmed with results. You may prefer searching in individual databases. Some databases are subject-specific, while others are multidisciplinary. Here is a good list of multidisciplinary databases for you to start your searches in. The links should take you to the specific database, and you will need to be logged in to access it.

• Gale in Context College
• Opposing Viewpoints
• Academic Search Premier
• Academic OneFile
• ProQuest US Newsstream

Here is a short video (6 minutes) on How to Use the A-Z Databases in the SDSU Library.