TOOLS AND CONCEPTS FOR DIGGING DEEPER

Data Basics

The Research Question

All research begins with a question? What’s your problem?

Question: Does alcohol provide health benefits if used in moderation? YES?    NO?

Position: Small amounts of alcohol can improve health.

What are some benefits of alcohol use? What are some problems alcohol use can cause?What are some types of diseases it can prevent?What are some diseases it can cause?Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

Keywords and the Research Question

The literature review is the information that gives you the big picture for answering the question.

Question: Does alcohol provide health benefits if used in moderation?

Possible Keywords: drinking and health benefitsalcohol and moderationalcohol and heart diseasealcohol and liver disease

What Keywords do!

Keywords help us in 3 big ways!They let you focus on specific aspects for the

issueThey use variations of terms relating to your

topicThey relate the terms together so the

database will retrieve articles that give you information about how the terms are related in practice

Ebscohost Databases(vendor)

Academic Search Premier

(General Database)

ATLA Religion Database(Specialty) Biological Abstracts

(Specialty)

Consumer Health Complete(Specialty)

The Database Model

Warehouse Distributor

Big Box Stores

Specialty Store

Specialty Store Specialty Store

The Web Model

What’s in (Brick) Stores

File/TableCompany Item PriceAeropostale Crest Graphic Jersey $15.95American Eagle Eagle Plaid Poplin $24.95Baby Phat Liquid Legging $19.90Hollister Zuma Beach $49.50

RecordAmerican EagleEagle Plaid Poplin $24.95

Fields

What’s in (LibraryData) Stores

File/TableAuthor Title LocationKing, Stephen Christine PS3561.I48Myer, Stephenie Twilight PZ7.M57188Poe, Edgar Allen Tales PS2612 .A1

RecordMyer, Stephenie Twilight

PZ7.M57188

Fields

The Database F.A.C.E.

FindAnyContentEverywhereOr functionally speaking,

Search, Sort, and Save

Search Blanks, Fields, Limiters, Print, Email, Download, Export

The F.A.C.E -Database

Search

Save

Sort

Save

Sort

Search

Sort

There are a number of ways to search sort and save database information, some features do more than one thing.

Basic Search Techniques

Boolean logic: Boolean logic is the ability to connect search terms using and, or, and not. These connectors help searchers widen or narrow their search as needed. The "and" connector is used to narrow a search. The "or" connector is used to widen a search. The "not" connector narrows a search by not including items containing the specified terms.

The library catalog is a database, so are the journal databases, both of them use similar techniques to get to information like Boolean Logic, truncation, quotations, and field searching!

Advanced Searching

Quotation marks: Quotation marks allow searchers to look for specific phrases. For example, if you search for “global warming", you should retrieve only pages with that exact phrase. Most, but not all, search engines allow you to focus your search using quotation marks.

Truncation: Truncation allows searchers to look for various forms of the same word. For example, by truncating "manage" you will find information on "manage," "manager," "managers," "management," and more. Some databases, especially on the internet, truncate automatically. Others require you to use a truncation symbol (such as an asterisk) to indicate you wish to search for all forms of a word.

Proximity searching: Proximity searching allows you to specify how close together in a sentence or paragraph you want your search terms to be. Ex: war near 5 iraq - Depending on the database, this will retrieve records with the terms near 5 words of each other (in any order).

Field searching: Field searching allows you to restrict your search to specific fields in a database, such as “title,” "author," or “text“ (anywhere in the text).