Research Tools & Techniques

by Scott Watkins, Library, Head of Educational Services

For readers who would like some tips for using library research tools more effectively, here is a brief overview of a few tools and techniques that might be useful. For more information about any of these resources, visit the Libraries’ website or ask a librarian.

E-Journal Finder

Enter the name (or ISSN) of a journal, magazine, or newspaper, to find out where you can find that publication within Mason’s electronic and print resources. Results will show what databases, if any, the journal can be found in electronically, and will also provide a link to the library catalog to locate any print copies we may have. A search for a particular journal article is more effective here, where both electronic and print titles are searched, than in the catalog, where only print items are typically found.

MasonLink

Sometimes, when you find an article in a database, the search results provide only a citation and not the full text of the article. However, the full text of the article may be available through one of Mason’s other databases (since we subscribe to hundreds of databases with some overlapping coverage). When you find a citation that includes the green MasonLink button, you can click the button to automatically search for the full text article in other databases. When you use MasonLink, another browser window opens showing you which databases (if any) contain the article. Clicking the “Go” button next to any listed results will open another browser window to access the other database. You may have to drill down to the particular volume and issue you need; this varies by database. The MasonLink results also include a link to the library catalog so that you can check for print copies that the Libraries may have.

InfoGuides

These are resource guides created by Mason librarians (using a software package called LibGuides). One of the purposes of these guides is to make searching for resources in particular disciplines easier. For example, instead of trying to figure out which of hundreds of databases to start a search in, you can consult the InfoGuide for your subject area and find a few databases that are suggested by a librarian for searches in that subject. A wide variety of information is available through InfoGuides. You can browse the A-Z list for guides, or search for guides on particular topics. At this point there are also a few InfoGuides for particular courses, but most of them are oriented around subjects. Search for broad disciplines like Accounting, Chemistry, or Writing, rather than searching for specific research topics.

“Pearling”

This is more of a research technique rather than a tool, but it can be a useful way to locate additional articles when you’ve found one in a database. Also, it may or may not actually be called “pearling” by anyone other than my graduate advisor – I’ve rarely seen the term anywhere else. This technique involves starting a search with keywords that are as precise as possible, finding a sample result that seems relatively close to the type of article you’re looking for, examining that result’s subject headings to discover what specific terms the database is using for those topics, and then searching again, specifically looking for those subject headings. By narrowing searches to specific subject headings, you can often more useful items than you can find with a typical keyword search.

Example: I’m looking for cookbooks. I do a general keyword search in the Mason Libraries catalog for “cooking and recipes” and I get 58 hits. Looking at the subject headings for the individual results that seem promising, I find that the most common subject heading is “Cookery.” So, with this in mind, I do a subject search for “cookery” and find 300 items that have been assigned that subject heading.

Keywords can be anything you can dream up, but subject headings are specific terms assigned by the database creators. Subject headings will normally be consistent throughout the database.

Suggested Databases for Undergrads

I frequently hear questions concerning which databases are best to recommend to students. For novice searchers, I often recommend the following general, multidisciplinary databases as good places to start an article search:

• Academic Search Complete
• JSTOR
• LexisNexis Academic
• ProQuest Research Library

I recommend directing students to these resources strategically, depending on the needs of your course and assignment. I also recommend that teachers of novice users try to integrate a ‘learning about databases’ component into the research/writing assignment itself, to have students evaluate and think critically about the information resources they are using.