ENGL 1101 - Harrison (BCHS) - English - MRU Library Website at Mount Royal University

Let's begin

My plan
Your thoughts

During today's class we will:

Discuss topic narrowing and forming a research question.
Review resources for identifying credible sources.
Explore our LibrarySearch and use it to find sources.
Talk about the help available to you.

Goal: By the end of this session you will know where and how to search for sources for your assignment, and where to get research help later.

Where are you in your research journey?

I've barely thought about it: 0 votes (0%)

I've chosen a general topic but that's it: 1 votes (3.85%)

I think I have my research question but need help narrowing: 19 votes (73.08%)

I have my specific topic and am ready to find my sources: 6 votes (23.08%)

Total Votes: 26

Your research question

Four steps to choosing your topic and research question

Choose a general topic or area that interests you. (Important!)
Do some preliminary or background research to see how others have discussed that topic.
Ask questions related to your topic. Then ask whether those questions make sense, and if they are worth trying to answer.
Chose one of those questions, refine it, make it clear, focused, and reasonable for the assignment.

Identifying and evaluating sources

	Scholarly (peer-reviewed, academic)	Non-scholarly (popular)
Author(s)	Subject matter expert; often with advanced education (e.g., PhD) or working at a university	Journalists, professional, or creative writers; may be crowd generated content
Verification	Reviewed by an editorial board or other subject matter experts (peers)	Reviewed by an editor (sometimes)
Audience & language	Researchers, scholars, students; language is academic or technical	General public; uses everyday, easy to understand language
Content	Reports original research; builds on previous knowledge	News, and practical information, creative works
Cites sources?	Always cites other research	Occasionally, but not required

How do you know if you have a credible, reliable, relevant source? Consider the following:

Is the author qualified to write about the topic?
Does the resource incorporate quality reports or research?
Is the language used objective, or emotional?
Is the information opinion-based, or can you identify some bias?
Does the resource actually address your research topic or problem?
Who is the intended audience?

Your resource doesn't necessarily have to meet all of these criteria.

The following video has more information about ways to understand and evaluate the credibility of sources.

There are all kinds of information resources available. When you find a source, two key questions you should always ask yourself:

Is it a quality, credible source?
Does it meet your information needs?

Many of your instructors will ask you to use academic sources in your assignments. This usually means peer-reviewed journal articles, scholarly books/chapters, or other credible resources that rely on dedicated research.

Non-scholarly sources are great for when you need background or supplementary information to give some context, such when discussing current events, or understanding how your topic is discussed in the real world, outside of academia/research settings.

Searching for Sources

The MRU LibrarySearch tool - the main search box on the library homepage - is like Google for library resources. Use it to find information in all formats (articles, books, magazines, videos, etc.) through a single search.

And just like Google, your keywords tell LibrarySearch what your are looking for. Using specific keywords that describe your exact topic in detail, and in context, will help the search understand what you need.

Search for articles, books/chapters, multimedia...

Other LibrarySearch Tips:

Sign in to save items you "pin" to your favourites list (look for the push pin icon). This also allows you to save searches.
Use the filters on the right to limit your results (e.g. relevant subjects, preferred resource type, etc.).
Filtering results for only peer-reviewed sources only applies to scholarly journal articles.
Use the advanced search to search for keywords in specific fields; useful for searching for a specific title or author.

Phrase searching: Use "quotation marks" around key ideas made up of multiple words.

"mental healh"
"online learning"

Truncation: Use an asterisk * to find different endings to your keywords

child* = child, children, childcare, childhood
relig* = religion, religous, relight

Synonyms: Using different keywords to describe the same idea will retrieve results that use any of those terms. Note that synonyms are most effective in brackets with the word OR between them.

(privacy OR confidentiality)
(learning OR education OR studying)

These advanced Google search options canl help you find useful, credible information on the open web.

Use site: to look for resources from trustworthy web domains.

site:gc.ca = Canadian government
site:alberta.ca = Alberta government
site:gov = US federal government
site:edu = US universities
site:ac.uk = UK universities
site:edu.au = Australian universities

Other options

allintitle:social media privacy teens = words after allintitle: must appear in the title of the page (example)
allintext:social media privacy undergraduates = words after allintext: must appear in the page text (example)

Select research databases/indexes

The MRU Library has 250+ databases to choose from. To help you find the right database for your research, we have highlighted some recommended resources in each subject area.

Academic Search Complete
Journal and magazine articles across a broad range of subject areas.
EBSCO permalink help link

Access to this resource is funded by Alberta Advanced Education through the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library.
Research Library
Features a highly-respected, diversified mix of scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, and newspapers in a wide range of academic topics.
Canadian Newsstream
Access to the full text of Canadian newspapers, newswires, newsmagazines, and television and radio transcripts.
SocINDEX with Full Text
SocINDEX offers comprehensive coverage of sociology, encompassing sociology sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study.
Access to this resource is funded by Alberta Advanced Education through the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library.
PsycInfo
Contains citations and summaries of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations in psychology and related disciplines.

Use Google Scholar to find abstracts or full-text versions of research on the web.

Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides searching of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources. This MRU specific link connects users to items available full text via MRU.