Off The Shelf

Last week I blogged about a new guide for CQ Researcher recently available.  This week I wanted to announce the Credo Reference User Guide is also now available.  To access the guide just go to the to the Library Homepage and following this path:

1. Click Articles, Books and More (your one-stop-shop for all of the Capella subscribed databases)
2. Scroll down the alphabetical list of databases until you see Credo Reference.  Underneath the database link is the link to the User Guide.  Click to open!

Earlier this year Robin blogged about how Credo Reference (along with Gale Virtual Reference Library) are helpful in gathering background information.  Credo includes dictionaries, encyclopedias, biographies, quotations, and bilingual dictionaries.  Check out her blog post for more information!

-Sommer

There’s a new guide available for learning more about and using CQ Researcher database. You can find it by going to the Library Homepage and following this path:

1. Click Articles, Books and More (your one-stop-shop for all of the Capella subscribed databases)
2. Scroll down the alphabetical list of databases until you see CQ Researcher.  Underneath the database link is the link to the User Guide.  Click to open!

CQ Researcher publishes 44 unbiased, heavily researched reports each year on timely and often controversial issues relating to health, social trends, criminal justice, international affairs, education, the environment, technology, and the economy. Reports are written by “seasoned” journalists and include a link to the author’s brief biography.

Note: CQ Researcher is not a peer reviewed journal.

CQ Researcher is a great source for undergraduates, but can also be useful for assignments not requiring peer reviewed articles or for finding background information on a topic that is considered controversial.

Check it out today!

-Sommer

Gale Virtual Reference Library now features streaming and downloadable audio of their encyclopedia entries.  You can click to play the entry or download the MP3.  Just click the Listen button and the options to either stream the audio or download the MP3 will appear.

Gale Virtual Reference Library is not a peer-reviewed journal resource, but it does include subject specific encyclopedias that are very helpful for finding out background information.  Theories and research methodologies discussed in the scholarly literature do not go over the basic information about the theory or describes how a particular type of methodology is used.  Scholarly (peer-reviewed) articles discuss the theory and methodology within the context of their research.  The scholars assume the readers already have that foundational knowledge.  So Gale is a great place to go to learn that foundational information.  And now it’s available with an audio feature!

To learn more about Gale check out Robin’s recent blog post Gale to the Rescue.

-Sommer

I blogged last week about how Ebrary now allows direct exporting to RefWorks. Well they’ve been busy adding even more new features. You’re no longer required to download the Ebrary Reader to utilize the InfoTools functions. So perhaps if you’ve had trouble in the past using ebrary on a computer where you don’t have administrative rights to download, now you can more easily use Ebrary.

Ebrary has provided this short video (3 mns) highlighting these new features. They also provide a more comprehensive video demonstrating how to use the Ebrary database (11 mns).

Ebrary is one of our ebook databases. If you haven’t explored ebooks yet, perhaps now is the time!

“Books are a great source of information for your papers, research and coursework. Books and ebooks allow an author to explore a topic in great depth. They can offer a different perspective than articles because they tend to provide a deeper overview or framework for the topic. You also do not have to read the whole book. If only a chapter is useful you can simply use it and cite only that chapter.”

-From our guide Finding Books & Ebooks (located on the Guides & Tutorials page)

-Sommer

Were you aware that the Library has two specialized databases that contain subject specific encyclopedias?  You can find the databases Gale Virtual Reference and CREDO reference listed under the  Articles, Books and More link on the Library’s home page. So why would you want to use subject specific encyclopedias when all you hear is that you need peer-reviewed resources for your coursework and papers?

Well here are a couple of reasons:

If you are having trouble understanding concepts  in a textbook, or in an article,  you may want to look them up in these encyclopedias to get a brief overview of the topic. The articles in these subject specific encyclopedias are very often written by experts in the field and may help you to further understand the concept/topic.

If you are starting a search in the Library databases and not getting results, or even before you start searching you may want to review your topic in one of these encyclopedias.  You can often get ideas for alternative search terms or ways to describe your topic by reading these brief articles.

So the next time you are struggling to understand a concept or find articles on a topic check out one of these databases of specialized encyclopedias to see if they can help move you forward with your research!

Robin

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

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

Often we will get calls from learners looking for theories, for instance “theories of leadership” or “theories of learning.”

The funny thing about theories is that they don’t refer to themselves as such … at least not inside peer reviewed articles, they don’t.  I. e. — If you search for “theories of learning” in the scholarly article databases you will probably get cruddy results.

Question:

So where are the best places to identify the names of highly influential theories?

Answer:

• Textbooks
  E.g. your course textbooks that you have accumulated from your courses over the years
• Subject-specific encyclopedias
  Click Reference Shelf on the libray’s home page.
• Lists online
  Some people have enough time to create lists of theories and post them online.  Note that these could be from star academics or shady people.  (Investigate who is behind them.)
• Books
  Go to Articles, Books & More on the library’s home page and scroll down to ebrary, netlibrary or PsycBOOKS.
• Literature Reviews
  Find these inside the Discussion section in relevant articles or search for “literature review” in the title

Once you have the name of the theory THEN you can go find scholarly articles that discuss the specific theory you are looking for (e.g. articles discussing the finer points of Transactional Leadership).  You’ll almost always have more luck if you leave out the word “theory” from your search.

Therefore, “transactional leadership theory” becomes “transactional leadership.” “Constructive learning theory” becomes “constructive learning.”  You’ll get a much wider pool of results if you search that way.

More Tips:
Cited Reference Searching can help you find out which articles are most seminal.  Google Scholar helps automate this process.   Use bibliographic mining to trace a specific theory back to the original author.  (Highlight in-text references from the article’s discussion section, match them to citations in the reference list, and then see whether the library has the full text articles using Journal and Book Locator.)

– Erika

There are many legitimate reasons that learners don’t use newspapers when they do research:

• The articles have little depth or perspective on large issues.
• They are not scholarly or peer reviewed.
• Tight deadlines make it hard to stop mistakes from creeping in.

Those are important considerations, but before you completely write newspapers off, remember that they love to report on recent events. That includes recent happenings in the scholarly realm. And reporters love to include numbers.

Articles in newspapers can bring important, scholarly information to your attention:

• Announce the findings of interesting academic research.
• Summarize government reports and laws.
• Provide statistics from research organizations or government agencies.
• Identify major individuals, associations, research foundations, or other organizations working in your field.

Once you’ve identified that important information you want, you can search the library and the internet to get back to the original source.

For example, this recent article from the New York Times, “Full of Doubts, U.S. Shoppers Cut Spending,” cites consumer confidence statistics from the Conference Board. Knowing that, you can go to the Conference Board database in the Capella library to explore their consumer confidence data along with their other economic resources.

- Erin

We often get calls from learners who have been searching a Library database for articles on their topic and are getting few or no results. When that happens it is usually for one of two reasons: you are using the wrong words to describe your topic or you are in the wrong database. 

 One tool to help you find other words to describe your topic is the thesaurus link in the database you are searching. It is usually near the top of the page.

When a database gets a journal article it classifies it under different words or categories. If you use those words you will get better results. If you type the word you are using in search box for the the thesaurus, it will usually display cross references to the words the database uses to describe your topic.

For example you want to do research on alternative schools. You put the words alternative schools in your search box and get few results. You look that term up in the ERIC’s database thesaurus and you see they indicate to use the words nontraditional education instead. The link also gives you other related terms. Wow – this is great!

So the next time you search a Library database check out the thesaurus link in the database you are searching. Its a great way save some of your “brain power” having to think up different words to describe your topic!

-Robin