Questions for Today
1. How can you make connections with life experiences or really different interests and your reading groups?
2. How can you know the best place to look for information on a given topic?
3. How do you know when a topic is too broad/narrow? How can you determine what’s the right scope?
4. What words do you choose to search? What other tips will help?
5. How do you know you’ve found the “good” stuff-- credible, reliable, current, etc?
Many library databases have advanced search screens like this:
Boolean Operator | Example | What it does |
AND | Halo AND language ideology | Narrows your search |
OR | teens OR adolescents OR "young adults" | Broadens your search |
NOT | "music education" NOT "music teachers" | Weeds out unhelpful stuff |
"" (Quotation marks) | "multiple personality disorder" | Searches an exact phrase, those words in that order |
* (Asterisk) |
communic* (will include possibilities like communication, communicators, communicating, etc) |
Includes all possible word ending variations |
If you answer "yes" to most of these questions, chances are good that you've found a scholarly article! Still not sure? Ask a CU Librarian!
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