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Faculty Toolkit

Information for faculty about using the library's services and resources for instruction

Helping Students Use Keywords & Searching Tools

Keyword searching is a large part of the research process and one of the most important things to teach students. Keyword searches are based on the research question, which should be developed before keyword searching begins, but these searches can also build a more detailed research question.

 

 

Students often have difficulty understanding the variety of information sources and why each would be used in a given situation (e.g. handbooks for overviews of a specific subject related topic). When discussing the information sources students will need for assignments, explaining the value of the resource to their specific topic will assist students. You can:

  • Help students understand that useful sources may look vastly different depending on the discipline/topic.
  • Make your definitions clear: what constitutes a “scholarly” or “empirical” source in your discipline? What does your field define as a “primary” source?
  • Provide students with examples of articles that are appropriate in scholarship, tone, scope, topic coverage.
  • Direct students to a variety of resources on a topic so that they can see the value of books, articles, and other resources to the creation of disciplinary knowledge and understand the purpose of research articles in context.
  • Provide students with examples of articles and other resources that are appropriate for your assignment (scope, argument, purpose, etc.)

If there is a database(s) that you recommend to students, direct them to the help and search tips pages. Ebsco and ProQuest are very good at this kind of support.

 

Our library instruction workshops include an activity to help students recognize that they need to use different types of searching language in order to retrieve relevant results and to emphasize that research is an iterative process. We will guide your students through the process of identifying and locating appropriate resources, but we encourage you to implement the same guidance in your classes. The more students know about the kinds of resources are available to them and suitable for their academic work, the more likely they will be to use them!

 

Resources: