Search Tips & Advice
Best practices for searching are relatively consistent across interfaces, and the CHOP-DROP-and-OR technique works most everywhere. No matter which database you choose, remember these important steps:
1) Think of or write down a phrase or sentence describing your topic. For example:
The impact of parental involvement on student success in high school
2) CHOP up your topic into the key concepts involved. Essentially you're identifying the most important words in your topic description. For example:
The impact of "parental involvement" on "student success" in "high school"
Note: Putting quotation marks around phrases of 2 or more words tells the database to search for those words together.
3) Then DROP each concept in its own database search box as shown below. Putting each concept in its own box will allow you more flexibility as you search.:
4) Use OR to string together synonyms or related terms for those concepts, when appropriate. This broadens your search to find various ways authors might describe your topic. For example:
5) Consider placing limiters, such as those for peer-review and for publication date depending on your topic and your source needs. These limits can look like this:
Tip: Don't choose the "Full Text" limit as this will exclude articles that we have online via other sources. Just follow "Find it @ Ball State" to see if we have access.
Peer Review is a critical part of evaluating information. It is a process that journals use to ensure the articles they publish represent the best scholarship currently available, and articles from peer-reviewed journal are often grounded in empirical research. When an article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal, the editors send it out to other scholars in the same field (the author's peers) to get their assessment of the quality of the scholarship, its relevance to the field, its appropriateness for the journal, etc. Sometimes, you'll see this referred to as "refereed."
Publications that don't use peer review (like Time, Cosmo, Sports Illustrated) rely on an editor to determine the value of an article. Their goal is mainly to educate or entertain the general public, not to support scholarly research.
Most library databases will have a search feature that allows you to limit your results to peer reviewed or scholarly sources.