General Search Tips

Remember, you are looking for an article that satisfies these criteria:

"It must have a paleoanthropological focus that includes the discovery and/or analysis of skeletal or dental remains from (a) hominin(s) (e.g., Australopithecus/Genus Homo).

The find(s) described in the article must be dated between ~5 million years ago to 20 thousand years ago"

Useful search terms include, but are not limited to:

• paleoanthropology

• hominin/Australopithecus/Paranthropus robustus/Homo, etc.

• skeleton/skeletal

• remains/bones/teeth/dentition

• a specific bone name: for example, "hominin mandible"

Conducting Academic Research With LibrarySearch 

LibrarySearch is MRU Library's one-stop search interface/catalogue that brings together resources across format, time, and subject. 

We have millions of e-resources and 221,000 physical resources in our collection, and LibrarySearch searches across those.

Things to remember when using LibrarySearch:

1. Sign in to save searches, items, and to request materials.

2. Use the pin icon to save books and articles to your Favorites for future reference.

3. Use the filters on the right. You will use Availability, Resource Type, and Date filters most often. Filter settings can be "locked in" so that you don't have to reapply them to every search that you make.

4. Some items may not be available, however, you can request unavailable items using what is called interlibrary loan.

5. When viewing an item record, scroll down to the Get it (for hardcopy/physical items) or Access options (for electronic items) section to get access to the item.

Helpful Search Operators to Use in LibrarySearch

You can use what are called search operators to search in a way to combine or omit different terms by telling the search engine exactly what you want and this can help you save some time (and frustration!)

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "hominin remains"

  • "Paranthropus robustus"

• Use AND to combine search terms (LibrarySearch automatically creates an AND when you write terms one after another, but it can be good practice to use an AND to help you understand the searches that you build) (AND narrows your search):

  • paleoanthropology AND hominin AND dentition

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms (OR broadens your search):

  • "hominin remains" OR "hominin bones"

• Use wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • skelet* (in this example, the search skelet* will search for records that contain strings such as skeleton and skeletal)

Conducting Academic Research With Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is another great way to find high quality resources.

Besides providing links to resources in MRU databases, Google Scholar links to online repositories that contain articles the author has been allowed to upload.  Academia.edu and ResearchGate are among the repositories searched by Google Scholar.

By clicking on the Settings icon, you can select library links to show library access for up to 5 libraries (type in Mount Royal and click on save).  If you are logged into MRU library, links should automatically populate if you are running a Google search in another window. 

Google Scholar has a nifty citation chaining function. The Cited by function will forward you to indexed scholarly material that has cited a resource that you may be interested in. The Related articles link will direct you to similar articles that may have the same metadata or keywords. 

Helpful Search Operators to Use in Google Scholar

Google Scholar's Advanced Search is found by clicking the menu icon in the top left.

You can also add search operators to Google Scholar searches to build your own custom advanced searches in similar ways to LibrarySearch:

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "Australopithecus garhi"

• Avoid using AND to combine search terms with Google Scholar, as the search engine automatically creates ANDs between concepts and sometimes adding an additional AND can confuse the search syntax.

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms:

  • "hominin remains" OR "hominin bones"

• Use wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • Australopithec* (in this example, the search Australopithec* will search for records that contain strings such as Australopithecus and Australopithecines)

Other Dedicated Databases to Search

• Anthropology Plus

• Academic Search Complete

• JSTOR

The Dog on the Internet Problem

Figure 1

Peter Steiner's Famous 1993 New Yorker Cartoon Illustrating an Issue Central to Information Evaluation

Note. From "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" [Cartoon], by P. Steiner, 1993, Wikimedia (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg).

Evaluating Information

It is good to find lots of search results, but, in order to use information skilfully, you need to know how to evaluate that information to determine whether a specific resource is appropriate to use in a specific use case (i.e. for a specific assignment).

The phrase "evaluating information" actually stands in for a wide range of judgments that we make about information in many different contexts, whether those judgments are about relevance, timeliness, quality, etc.

Librarians have developed several different acronyms to help people remember useful criteria to use in information evaluation. One of my personal favourites is RADAR!

RADAR stands for

Relevance

Authority

Date

Accuracy

Reason for Creation

We can ask the following questions to help us assess each criterion:

Relevance:

• Does this source fit my topic?

• What is this source's intended audience?

  • Is that intended audience appropriate for my use case in this assignment?

Authority:

• Is/are the creator(s) of this source clearly identified or known to us?

• How important is it in this use case to trust the source's creator(s)?

  • If it is important, why should we trust the source's creator(s)?

  • Is the source's creator credentialed or an expert in their field?

Date:

• Is the creation or publication date of this source identified or known to us?

• Is this source too old?

Accuracy:

• Do this source's facts "check out"?

• Does the source have references of its own?

Reason for Creation (take your best guess at this question using judgments from earlier criteria):

• Why was this source made?

• Was this source made to sell a product or service, to inform/educate, to entertain, etc?

(Adapted from Mandalios, J. (2013). RADAR: An approach for helping students evaluate Internet sources. Journal of Information Science, 39(4), 470-478. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551513478889)

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources

A scholarly publication contains articles written by experts in a particular field. The primary audience of these articles is other experts.

Many of these publications are also referred to as "peer-reviewed," academic, or "refereed." They all mean essentially the same thing and refer to the editorial and publication process in which scholars in the same field review the research and findings before the article is published.

Some Helpful Questions for Identifying a Scholarly/Academic Article

1. What are the author’s credentials? Was it written by an expert?

2. Was it published in a journal (is there a DOI?)? (If you are not sure if a source is a journal article, you can enter the title of the publication into Ulrichs Web to check.)

3. Does it use academic or more technical language?

4. Does it includes a reference list of sources that it is citing?

5. How long is it? (Scholarly articles are typically longer than popular or news articles.)

6. Does it have a "Received" and "Accepted" date on it?

7. Is it an actual article? (Sometimes other types of content are included in scholarly publications, such as editorials/opinion pieces and book reviews. Make sure you are looking at an article.)

Examples of peer-reviewed journals:

• Science
• Nature
• Journal of Archaeological Science
• Journal of Human Evolution
• Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
• Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
• Journal of Field Archaeology
• American Antiquity
• Antiquity
• Latin American Antiquity
• Archaeometry
• Current Anthropology
• The Holocene
• Environmental Archaeology
• PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
• PLOS One
• Quaternary International

Tips for Reading Scholarly Articles

(Adapted from handouts by J. Loyer & M. MacMillan)

Check for relevance – is the article useful for what you’re doing? You will likely never find the perfect article that’s exactly on the topic you have in mind, but you will find ones that are close and useful because:

• They provide background or context.

• They provide theories that help you examine/understand a new situation.

• They look at a similar group of people.

• They look at similar situations.

• They use methods that you could use to answer similar questions.

• They apply techniques that could be useful in your situation.

• They have useful bibliographies that direct you to even better materials.

Print out the article – research supports that reading comprehension increases when reading in print).

Skim to get the article's general idea – review introduction, headings, conclusion to see if the article will suit your needs.

Get comfortable and carve out a little time – reading for depth takes focus and practice, and you’ll probably have to read the article more than once.

Read with a pen in hand – mark up interesting points, odd words, and circle key concepts.

Read with a questioning spirit – engage in a dialogue with the piece’s author(s) – “really?” “prove it!” “are you sure about that?” – constantly question the author(s).

If possible, practice slow reading – summarize paragraphs as you go and read the article aloud to slow down.

Note unfamiliar words and concepts – look them up on your second read through.

Make connections as you go – note what the article reminds you of, what thoughts it provokes, how it matches or contradicts your experience – these connections are critical to your understanding of texts.

Draw things out – stats, tables, connections or relationships can make more sense if you diagram them.

Consider the article's approaches and limitations – if you started with the same question(s) as the author, how would you approach finding the answers? What’s missing from the article? What questions does it leave you with?

Discuss the article with others – students identified this as a very useful strategy for getting the most out of articles.

Citation Help

• Use the "cite" feature in most search tools to get you started with most resources (you will need to review and correct the citation). (In MRU LibrarySearch, the citation generator can be found in the "Tools" section on the record page for a journal article.)

• Cite Sources: Learn the correct way to cite sources by using these guides, tutorials, and videos.

  • MRU Guide to APA Style for Referencing (2024-2025)

  • MRU Guide to APA Style for Formatting a Paper (2024-2025)

• Academic Success Workshops: Academic Success Workshops are 75 minutes long and are offered both in-person and online. Registration is required.

• Appointments: Personalized online or in-person 30-minute appointments with a Learning Strategist at Student Learning Services located on the 2nd floor of the Riddell Library & Learning Centre.

• Use the Service Desk on the 1st floor of the RLLC for assistance as well as the library chat feature on the library website for quick citation questions.