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Gingrich Library: Your Success Is Why We're Here!

 

EDU 547 -- ESL Strategies Courses

Starting Your Research

The Articles and more search box is a great place to start your research and get ideas for your assignments. It helps you quickly find relevant resources on a subject, without having to decide which database(s) to search. In many instances, your initial search will provide you with a research starter. You can also limit your search results in a variety of ways, including date range, publication type, and source type. The library's cataloged resources, such as books, ebooks, and DVDs are also integrated into the search results.

The concept map in the left sidebar offers visual way to quickly view and quickly select related topics. Try it!

Tips for Better Searching

  1. By default, Articles and more searches all terms you have entered, without the need to use AND. For example: academic achievement athletes will find items that contain all 3 terms.
  2. By default, Find articles searches through the full text of documents (if available). This may cause a large number of results, and not all are relevant to your subject. Results are returned in a relevancy ranked order.
  3. To improve the relevancy of your search results, enclose phrases in “quotation marks”. For example: “academic achievement” or “standardized tests”
  4. Include the apostrophe. For example, use ”teacher’s pet” rather than “teachers pet”
  5. To find variant endings for a word, use the * asterisk (truncation symbol.) For example: the stem educ* finds educate, education, educational. Be careful not to use a very short stem!
  6. To find scholarly journal articles, refine your search by selecting the Peer Reviewed button.
  7. The Advanced Search lets you refine a search by limiting to language. However, be aware that many English language articles have not been tagged as English, so will be missing from your search results.
  8. Many items have direct links to retrieve the full text. For those that don’t, use the Access options button to determine if Gingrich Library has the item in print or online.