NOTE: Your essay must be on a topic on which reasonable, well-meaning scholars might disagree
What does high quality evidence look like?
Who has the authority, experience or expertise to be writing about this topic?
Where, why, and with whom would these people be sharing their ideas?
| Author / Creator | Subject matter expert; often with advanced education (e.g., PhD) or working at a university |
| Verification / Quality Control | Reviewed by an editorial board or other subject matter experts (peer review) |
| Audience & Language | Researchers, scholars, students; language is academic or technical. Not aimed at the general public |
| Content | Reports original research or analysis AND builds on previous knowledge. Not just opinion |
| Use of Evidence | Arguments based largely on existing evidence. Long reference lists and many in-text citations |
| Access | Usually through the Library or Google Scholar; usually paid access |
Open this form:https://bit.ly/GNED1401Answer the Questions using LibrarySearch and the Library Website |
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Use the pin icon to save books and articles to your Favorites for future reference.
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.
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:
"climate crisis"
"surveillance capitalism"
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):
"social media" AND privacy
Use OR to connect two or more similar terms (OR broadens your search):
"social media" OR "social networking"
Use an asterisk to find different variations on a root word:
health* (in this example, the term health* will find items that contain the words health, healthy, and healthcare)
