The purpose of this page is to answer questions from GEL 101 Miller/Fiegen
Fall 2006

On campus?  Click to view a video clip for these questions. (Coming soon)

Comments from 9/15/06

What do you already know?

Boolean operators for searching:

AND to narrow your search.   OR to broad your search.  (   ) to use with OR
Truncation * ?!$ to find other forms of the word
"Searching for phrases"  using quotes.

Finding articles from the databases
How to see how scholarly an article is

You asked:

How many sources would be a good amount?

It depends--for this class: 1)  Whatever your instructor requires.    2) When you have enough.

This is an important question when doing graduate level work.  It depends on the purpose of your research.  A review of the literature is usually done to gather background information but also to gather all previous studies related to that topic.  It also varies by major or specialty.  The sciences have very strict criteria for sources, while a business topic may only other case studies examples.

How much time should you put into a project?

I will let Prof. Miller answer this, be sure to ask in class.  If not yet, you will learn how to plan your time in this course.

What I do know is how research time is usually spread out.  In the beginning while you are defining your topic and doing your initial searching for highly credible sources can be long--because you run into dead ends, have to redefine, etc.  That's why we stress defining your topic carefully in the beginning so that early time is shortened.

How do you get the printer to work and print?

You can ask the tech assistants for help.  Ask at the library Research Help Desk, or call student help from home at 750-6505.

How do we cite our sources?

For this class you will use APA (American Psychological Association) style format. We will spend lots of time on this when we meet again.  In the mean time you can lots of examples from the library home page--look in the upper left hand corner: library.csusm.edu

Direct link to citing sources: Citation Style Guides

Can you use google a lot?

Not for this class, though we will spend a little bit of time evaluating web sites and sharing our favorite advanced searching methods.

How do we access the database from home?

Off-campus access gives you instructions.

What is the most efficient search engine for medical systems?

I am going to refer this to our Science Librarian for an answer.

How do you find background research?

I hope this was answered by the class on how to search the library catalog for books, encyclopedias etc.  It is still the best way because you get one short description on a topic quickly. Keep your topic very general for this trick to work:

Try searching in the catalog :   [Topic]  Encyclopeadia
                                           [Topic] [click the MODIFY RESULTS button] Where: REFERENCE

What’s the password to access the library database from home?

Your campus user name and campus password.  If you are having trouble please contact the Student Help Desk: 750-6505

What do we do if there is no full text available?

Be sure to click the   button in your results pages first to locate the full text.

Next look and/or ask for help locating an alternative source (librarians are specialists in this area). If you still must have that specific article the The Inter Library Loan Service (ILL),
provides a form for you fill out--it will take about a week or more to receive it-so be sure that it is within your deadline.

Which databases are more recommended and which ones are less so?

The library databases pages are grouped according to Most Useful and Also Useful. 

Last updated: 9/21/06
afiegen@csusm.edu