Pratt Institute Libraries | Information Literacy

Note: Although he following steps are presented as a linear progression, the research process is actually an reiterative process that might require the seeker to return to earlier steps to modify their approach.

Select a Topic

Topics are typically broad. For example you might be interested in the Civil War. At this step of the process, reference volumes, such as dictionaries and encyclopedias, are helpful to help define and supply background information on your broad topic.

Develop a Thesis Question/Statement

A savvy user of information couches their broad topic into a narrower one and then asks a question of inquiry concerning their topic.

I would need to narrow down my focus, if I were researching the US Civil War, because it is an extremely comprehensive topic that would take several lifetimes to retrieve all the information that exists on the US Civil War. For example, a narrowed focus or sub-topic would be, the "Causes of the US Civil War" or even better "Economic Causes of the US Civil War." Once I have a sub-topic, I might be ready to construct my thesis question: "What were the economic causes of the US Civil War?"

Later in the process, the user might need to return to this step and modify it, if it is discovered that there is insufficient information referring to their topic.

Convert Thesis Statement into Keywords

Because my thesis question:

"What were the economic causes of the US Civil War?"

is quite bulky and difficult to use as a tool to retrieve information with, I am going to need to convert/distill my thesis into its essential keywords. I am able to assume "what", "were", "the", and "of" are stop words in most search engines, words that the search engine ignores, and do not reflect the heart of what I am investigating. So the terms that I might use are: " US " , "Civil War" , "Economic" and "Causes."

Later in the process, the user might need to return to this step and modified, if it is discovered that there is insufficient information referring to their thesis statement or narrowed down topic.

Develop Appropriate Search Strategies & Select Appropriate Resources

Before deciding on what resources to use, it is important to remember context. If this is an academic project, I need to look for authoritatively accurate resources. If your research is merely for personal interest, then you might consider starting with a commercial search engine, but for most academic oriented projects it is important to review books and peer reviewed journals.

Is my topic too recent or has information changed to quickly for books to have current information on the topic. Typically this might be true in the sciences, and less true in the humanities and social sciences. In the sciences, many researchers perform most of their searches in citation indexes to find current articles in peer reviewed journals. Since my topic on the US Civil War involves scholarship that has been established for several decades, I can feel secure about looking for books on my topic. Books can be located using a library catalog or OPAC. Click here to access the Pratt Library OPAC.

Effectively Perform Searches (Print & Electronic)

Part I: Print

Once you have your list of keywords, you are ready to search book and periodicals. Again, your topic of inquiry determines where you will begin the retrieval process. Assuming the topic is not completely topically volatile, such as a new scientific or medical discovery, it is typically recommended that you use your library’s catalog to locate books. A library catalog contains a list of the library’s holdings and most are electronically based OPAC’s (On-line Public Access Catalog). Typically a user can search an OPAC by Title, Author, Subject or Keyword.

Although effective in terms of returning a large number of items, keyword searches should only be thought as a starting point, because of their high recall rate and lack of precision. When a user performs a keyword search on a specific term(s), any record that has that search term in it will be returned which might result in a large number of false hits that do not reflect your subject interests.

Title searches are used when a user knows the name of a book or periodical, but wants to verify the library owns a copy and if so, the status and location of the item.

Author searches are used when a user knows the name of a renowned author who has written in a specific subject area, or a user might have enjoyed other books by the author, and would like to determine if the author has published other works and locate those items.

Subject searches are used when a user does not know of a specific title or author, but wants to investigate a specific topic or subject. Subject searches use a controlled vocabulary, typically Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and although they are the most general form of the searches that we have discussed so far, they require knowledge of subject headings. Subject Headings can be accessed using the Library of Congress Subject Heading volumes located in the reference area of your library, or a subject browse through the catalog which after a few potential reiterations would eventually bring you in proximity to a desired term that matches your thesis statement’s intention or by performing a series of general keyword searches (see above) that would return items that might reflect your needs from which you can examine and extract the subject headings, if appropriate, to be used for further more precise subject searches.

Occasionally a user might need to limit or expand their search based upon a set of selected terms. Limiting and exanding searches is accomplished through Boolean based searching (AND/NOT/OR).

AND Searches (Narrowing Potential Results)

A user might want a specific title authored by John Smith, but John Smith has written over 200 books on different topics and the user merely wants to verify if the library owns a specific set of titles rather than look through over 200 records. In this case a user might want to perform a Boolean Search using the AND operator.

For example:

AND

In the above diagram, the library catalog contains over 200 items written by John Smith and 120 items referring to the History of Science. A user of information would be able to perform an efficient search of information if they performed a search limiting the results to only John Smith’s books that involve the History of Science.

To perform this search a user would enter:

Author: Smith, John

Operator: AND

Subject: History of Science

Return: Would return only 3 items.

NOT Searches

A user might need to remove specific works from the results list. Using a different diagram :

In this diagram, the library again owns 200 items authored by John Smith, but the user wants to remove all fiction books by John Smith becasue they they are performing a research project on the History of Science. Since the 190 of the library's 15, 000 works of fiction were written by John Smith, the user would like to insure that those 190 works are not returned in the results list.

To perform this search a user would enter:

Author: Smith, John

Operator: NOT

Subject: Fiction

Result: Would remove John Smith’s 190 fiction based books from the results list; thus returning 10 books in the results list.

OR Searches

A user might want to broaden their search because they are not sure what they might be looking for or they want to locate a specific subject heading (please see above). A user might build a search similar to this:

In this diagram, the library again owns 82 items witht the term "Botany" and 300 items with the term "Zoology" in it's catlogued records. Because the user is attempting to locate a specific subject heading and is not sure of it might be associate with either botany or zoology, the user is building the broadest possible search to capture the range of possibilities.

To perform this search a user would enter:

Keyword: Botany

Operator: OR

Keyword: Zoology

Result: Would return all the books (382) on Botany and Zoology.

Effectively Perform Searches (Print & Electronic)

Part II: Electronic

Because specific articles in periodicals are not catalogued, a user will need to use a citation index. Many indexes are available in electronic form contained and compiled in a database accessed from your library’s website. Please note that because most electronic resources are licensed resources, access to databases is restricted to authorized users; discuss with your librarian how to obtain access to databases. Using the methods (keyword, title, author, subject searches) introduced in part one, a user would use similar methodology to search for a published article using a citation index. Some of the citation indexes allow users to restrict results to only peer reviewed articles allowing the user to insure the accuracy and authoritativeness of the material. Once a citation is located, the user must use the library’s catalog to determine if the library owns the specific periodical and volume/issue by performing a Journal Title or Title Browse search.

A few databases have full-text functionality that deliver the actual full-text of the article relieving the user of the need to user the catalog and then go to the stacks to obtain the periodical.

No matter what type of searche you perform (print or electronic), you might need to adjust your thesis statement or find different search terms, if you haven’t been able to locate and retrieve a sufficient amount of relevant information.

Evaluate Information

Once you have retrieved information, it is time to evaluate it. If available, read the table of contents, skim the forward, preface, introductory and or concluding chapters. Does this particular book appear to align with your research goals? How comprehensive is the information that is provided? Who do you think is the author/publisher’s intended audience? Will it provide background information, answer your question directly or at the very least provide material that you can build a literature review or inferences from. In terms of quality, how current is the information, who published the book or article, does a bibliography, works cited page, footnotes and or endnotes exist to verify that the author is basing their scholarship off recognized criteria? Note, use the citations that the author provided jumping off points for further your research.

You might not be able to us the retrieved information and perform additional searches, if an information item that you have collected scores low marks in any of these evaluation criteria.

Synthesize Information

(Extracting, Synopsizing, & Paraphrasing Information)

Once you have evaluated your retrieved information items (books and articles), you are ready to start laying the foundations of your presentation. The first step is to take detailed notes of the information that you extracted from your retrieved items. Note taking involves making sure that you have noted the particular items that you extracted the information from, including page numbers.

From the raw material of your notes attempt to synopsize large chunks of text by paraphrasing the main idea(s) into your own words. If you are not able to paraphrase, but still want to include it, you will include it as a quote or block quote.

Cite Information/Avoiding Plagiarism

Any idea (ideas not commonly known) or series of words that are not your own need to be cited. Citations need to be build using a specific format, depending upon your discipline and or the institution that you are affiliated with. Click here to learn about different citation formating styles.

Last Updated: July 27, 2005 (sk)

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