Native North America
Library Session: Literature Searching
Ryan Clement
who am I?
- I'm Ryan, the Data Services Librarian
- I use he/him/his pronouns
- I work with the Economics, Geography, Sociology/Anthropology, & Philosophy departments
- I help people find and use data
- I can help with all stages of your research!
- You can find more at go/ryan/
what are we covering today?
- keyword searching concepts
- literature review sources
- questions
keyword searching
- break your question into concepts
- think of synonyms for the concepts: use language from the literature
- be ready to be flexible on which concepts are most important: e.g. is geography really the most important?
boolean logic
*most databases assume "and"
remember!
- searching the literature is iterative
- learn from your searches
- keep a record of your searches: start a text file
searching anthropology literature sources
- Summon (go/summon/)
- AnthroSource (go/anthrosource/)
- Scopus (go/scopus/)
- Google Scholar (scholar.google.com)
evaluating sources
where does it come from?
- is it scholarly? peer reviewed?
- is there evidence? can you trace this evidence?
- what is the tone?
- is it free from errors?
who wrote it and why?
- is the author qualified to write on the topic?
- are their credentials visible? or can you find them?
- why did they write this? for what audience?
- can you find out how the research is funded?
- does any of this show bias?