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HRES 2170 - Develop your search

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Trying different keywords and using synonyms is important when searching and can help with narrowing down your topic. TIPS: enclose phrases in quotation marks for more precise results. If you use multiple synonyms separate them with or and enclose in parentheses. For example, one topic could be searched a number of ways:

employee recognition benefits
employee millennials (rewards or recognition)
rewards staff (issues or policy or culture)
"employee fringe benefits" 

"employee recruitment" challenges electronic
"e-recruitment" (challenges or issues or methods)

"labour rights" migrants
"labour rights" migrants canada
migrant labour canada (debate or issues)
"foreign workers" rights 
 

Resources to help: The differences between Scholarly/Popular/Trade publications and Is this scholarly? The Library also has information on writing abstracts and conducting literature reviews that may be helpful. 

Below are two different ways to try searches to find scholarly and magazine articles. 


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1. Google Scholar

Google Scholar will search the MRU library for scholarly articles.  Before using make sure its set up for off-campus use by following the Menu Icon --> Settings --> Library Links and add Mount Royal University (if not already there). 

Change the date in the top left of the page. 
If you find one good article make sure to "chain" by clicking Cited by and Related articles below the summary.
The Cite link often does not include the DOI which is required in your APA reference.
Besides providing links to articles in MRU databases, Google Scholar links to online repositories which contain articles the author has been allowed to upload.  Academia.edu and ResearchGate are among the repositories searched by Google Scholar. These are still valid scholarly articles as long as they meet the criteria in What is a scholarly article

LibrarySearch

This is the same search box that is on the Library homepage. Once you've done a search, you can change the type of your results by clicking the filters on the right.

  • Check off Peer-Reviewed under the Availability filter to find scholarly articles. If you do not want to see any Scholarly articles click Exclude peer reviewed to the right of the Peer Reviewed box. 
  • Limit by publication date by using the Creation Date filter
  • Find related articles by clicking on the red arrows (when available)
  • Look for a Permalink to save the articles url.
  • "Cite it" usually provides a good reference.
  • The "Google Scholar" link at the bottom right of the page will do your search in Google Scholar.

Google News provides access to credible non-scholarly articles.  
Here are direct links to good sources that are limited online but you can access free via the Library:
Globe and Mail - Canadian
Harvard Business Review - a great source on business concepts and solutions. Search example: JN "Harvard Business Review" and flextime.

Citation Help

Visit the MRU Library's Research Support for APA citation guides and tips: https://library.mtroyal.ca/citations

Librarian

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Geoff Owens
Contact:
Email: gowens@mtroyal.ca
Phone: 403.440.7737
Office: EL4471S