Principles of Library Searching

Welcome!

Welcome to the Ready Reference Guide for LibChat! The purpose of this guide is to provide a more in-depth explanation to search strategy questions that are asked over LibChat. This guide is to be shared with patrons over LibChat. 

Topics are linked to their corresponding pages

This Guide Addresses:

• Finding a topic for a research paper
• Writing a research question
• Translating that research question into a useable keywords search string 
  • Explaining PICO and the use of Boolean Operators 
• The use of limiters to generate on-topic search results
• Common issues that students have while searching
  • Too many non-specific articles
  • Too few articles
• A pro tip section that includes quick information that doesn't justify it's own section
  • Quick, useful features that are found in database sites to make the searching process easier
  • Zotero and references software
  • LibKey Nomad
  • ILL
  • Useful links for more information: General research, citation help, and etc. 
  • A quick explanation to Reverse (Forward) Citation Searching if a student has access to Scopus/Web of Science through another institution
  • How to contact us friendly and helpful librarians of course :)