Off The Shelf

You have probably enjoyed some of our multimedia tutorials on databases and searching from our Guides & Tutorials page.  Now, it looks like the database companies are getting into the training game directly!

The PsycINFO Department of the American Psychological Association is pleased to share training videos with you through the popular site YouTube. These videos provide guidance to using various features, as well as give tips to build precise searches. We are adding new videos regularly.

All of our videos are available on the PsycINFO Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/PsycINFO

 

– Erika

You’re often told to write about what you know, however when you have to support what you know with resources that back up your claims it’s possible you’ll have difficulty finding them.

Just because the topic matters to you, doesn’t mean it matters to the researcher applying for grant money to conduct a research study.

A good practice is to focus on a broader topic that interests you and then use what’s in the literature to formulate your topic. See what comes up in the literature about that topic. What subtopics or aspects of the topic are being researched or discussed.

Not sure where to start? Try your textbook or other course readings to discover some of the conversations and topics being studied and discussed and mold your research question within that context.

Robin recently posted about using the Subject Thesaurus and Topics to find the right keywords for your search. You can also use these to discover ideas for how you can focus your topic. This is what we librarians refer to as “playing in the databases.” Type in a broader subject keyword and notice the subject and topic terms that come up. Then try adding one or two of those as keywords to your search to begin narrowing and defining the broader topic you started with. As you “play” you may find yourself inspired and be ready to formulate your research question or thesis statement.

One of the biggest blunders is writing your paper prior to finding the resources you need, because you might find your thesis statement is not supported in the literature. While this might be tempting and you feel you have a good enough grasp of the topic to start writing, you might end up losing a lot of time researching and rewriting your paper. So start with the research and be sure you have support for your thesis statement. If your thesis statement comes from the literature then you have the peace of mind knowing it’s supported.

Below are examples from Business Source Complete (an EBSCOhost database) and ABI/INFORM Global (a ProQuest database) showing where you can find helpful subject and topic terms after searching with broader research topic keywords.

-Sommer

Subject Terms Business Source Complete

Suggested Topics in ABI/INFORM

Many times learners call or email the Library because the search terms they are using are not giving them the results they want in the databases. We are happy to help you figure out what keywords work best, but often as librarians we consult a tool in the databases that is also available to you.

Most of the Library databases have a link to a Thesaurus (sometimes it is called Browse Topics or Subjects) which will suggest related or alternative terms to search. It’s not the first thing people think of doing when they start searching a database, but doing a little “research” on keywords at the beginning of your search may help you find those “perfect” articles sooner rather than later.

- Robin

When looking exclusively for peer-reviewed journal articles, most people let the databases do the heavy lifting. In most of the library’s databases you can check a little box, and you’ll only get back the scholarly material you want, right?

Not quite. Peer review is an editorial decision at the journal, which means that all FULL ARTICLES are subjected to the peer-review process.

But not everything in a journal is a scholarly article.

Most journals include other content, such as letters to the editor, book reviews, summaries of recent conferences, etc. These items are NOT peer reviewed.

Even if you know you’re looking at items from a peer-reviewed journal, it’s a good idea to evaluate them according to the same scholarly article criteria you’d use if you didn’t know the journal’s editorial policies. Peer-reviewed articles will match most of the following:

• Always includes references
• Uses jargon of the discipline
• Reports on a research study with methodology and data analysis
• Gives authors’ titles and affiliation
• Long, descriptive title
• More than 5 pages long

For more information, see our guide What are Peer-reviewed Articles and How do I find Them?

- Erin

The end of the quarter is no reason to give up on research, right? That’s why I’m devoting this post to something that is fun, informative, and very 21st century: the internet meme.

What is a meme? If you look it up in the library’s Credo Reference database, you’ll see the following definition:

A contagious unit of information (such as an idea, slogan, or fashion) that replicates through communication networks; a successful meme has bait (it promises something) and a hook (it urges people to pass it on to others).

meme. (2003). In Webster’s New World™ Computer Dictionary. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Retrieved March 18, 2009, from http://www.credoreference.com.library.capella.edu/entry/3484787/.

Memes are widespread on the internet. You’ve probably seen several of them without realizing that’s what they are. Someone posts a video to YouTube and within a few weeks, everyone you know has seen (and probably laughed at or been terrified) it. But have you ever wondered how they got started? How they evolved?

Or, have you ever seen something on the internet that seems like it’s an inside joke that you just aren’t a party to? Then it could be a meme. And memes are showing up everywhere – they simultaneously make people laugh AND show others how “hip” you are. One recent example is from Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who altered a common internet meme to be the title of a blog post on the economy: All Your Downside Are Belong To Us.

So how would you find out what that title actually means? One easy way is to let Rocketboom do it for you. They are an internet culture blog that creates “know your meme” videos to help the clueless among us become more internet savvy. It’s a one stop shop for finding out the history behind:

• LolCats
• The Rick Roll
• Fail
• Boom goes the Dynamite
• Disaster Girl
• many others

So, if reading scholarly literature isn’t exactly upping your street cred with the under 20 crowd, perhaps boning up on a few internet memes is just what you need to recuperate from your quarter and look cool at parties.

It may not be an academic endeavor, but this librarian is labeling it information literacy. (Knowing how information travels in the 21st century is central to being an information literate person . . . ) And we librarians are certainly not above a few internet memes ourselves!

- Erin

Tour the Library

We’ve recently launched an updated media piece titled “Tour the Library” where you can learn where to go for what in the Capella Library. New learners will benefit from learning how to navigate within the Capella Library, and seasoned learners might learn something new.

Tour the Library is linked from the Library Homepage, the Guides & Tutorials page, and of course this blog post: Tour the Library.

Tour the Library will help answer the following burning questions:

• What’s available in the Capella Library?
• Where do I go when I want to find articles, books, and dissertations on my topic?
• How do I easily locate a book or article in the library when I have the citation (reference) information?
• How can I obtain something unavailable in the Capella Library without having to pay for it?
• Where can I go for guidance on improving my research skills?
• Is there a tool available through the Capella Library that will help me organize all of my references and create APA style reference lists?

So take a Tour of the Capella Library today! And when you need help, Ask a Librarian.

-Sommer

Many of us are familiar with looking at the reference lists of articles for further articles on our topic. These articles are of course older than the article you have.

How would you like to find articles that are more recent than the article you found? To do this you want to use a technique called Cited Reference Searching.

Check out the Library’s Bibliography Mining and Cited Reference Searching  page to find out how to do this in a particular database, or using Google Scholar to find resources both inside and outside the Capella Library.

Here is an example that shows a search for a seminal article on the topic of Library Anxiety.  If you click on the cited by link in Google Scholar you will see other more recent articles and other resources that have cited this article:

Want to find out more about using the Capella Library and Google Scholar check out this brief interactive tutorial or guide or Ask-a-Librarian.

Robin

With the quarter winding down (and great bargains at the mall beckoning), it’s easy to fall into a bit of school complacency. There’s a moment when you just want to be done!

But before you close your courseroom for the last time, think about the readings and guides that were in your course. If you think they might help you later on, this is the time to save or print hard copies for your personal library.

This is especially important if you are a doctoral learner. Building a collection of important readings now can help you prepare for your comps, and even your dissertation. We often get calls from learners trying to remember a great reading from three or four quarters ago. It’s not so easy to do, and sometimes there just isn’t enough information tucked into the recesses of your memory to refind the exact item you want. It’s much better to have it at your fingertips.

Just printing the Course Materials page from the syllabus can be helpful (all the citations are there, and you can use Journal & Book Locator to find them again). Or you can send the citation information to RefWorks as you do your readings. Then you’ll be ready to add them to a bibliography if you use them later on.

Whatever way you do it, now’s the time to take a moment to collect and organize. Building your personal library often goes hand in hand with building your knowledge in the field.

-Erin

The Capella University Library’s database, Credo Reference, has added new books to its collection.  Here is a sampling from the list of new titles:

• Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
• Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society & Culture
• Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict
• Handbook of Global Environmental Politics
• Ireland and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
• Women’s History as Scientists: A Guide to the Debates

To find out more about these titles or see what other reference books Credo has available, check it out by going to the library home> Articles, Books and More> Credo Reference.

 -Kim