In Class Exercise Instructions
The following exercise should take approximately 30-40 minutes to complete. Write down your responses however it works best for you - in a Word document that you can e-mail to yourself, in Google Drive, in an e-mail to yourself - whatever works! The hope is that you find some articles that work for your research!
We will be sharing some searches, articles, and discussions of relevance at the end of class, so be prepared to share!
Throughout today's exercise, check in with your partner to see if you are encountering any barriers to your research to help one another out. If you get stuck at any point, ask a librarian or your professor. Research is a collaborative process!
- With your partner, collaborate to come up with at least 8-10 keywords on your topic (this can include those from your homework). Synonyms and related terms definitely count, and Google can be very helpful for this if you get stuck!
- Using Sociological Abstracts or another journal articles database located on your research guide, locate a scholarly article relevant to your topic.
- What database did you choose to search?
- What search techniques did you use to find your article? Write down any keywords or any other unique database features used, e.g. the peer-reviewed limiter or subject terms.
- Provide the citation for your article.
- With your partner, share the gist of one another's article, and collaboratively come up with a 2-3 sentence statement as to why the article is relevant to your research.
- Go to Google Scholar to search the title of your article. Use the "Cited by"*** Feature to find another scholarly article related to your topic and provide the citation. With your partner, discuss how this new article connects to the research in your initial article.
- ***NOTE: If the "Cited by" feature is not available, write out a brief game plan for finding another related article, and find another article using your search method!
- Use Google to search both of the sources you cited (similar to what you did on the homework). Based on the information you've found about your sources, discuss with your partner why you think your sources are or are not credible, e.g. whether the source is peer-reviewed, written by a scholar, or some other feature that adds to its appeal as a potential citation in your bibliography.
- Applying your knowledge of how to use Sociological Abstracts, use one of the News Databases to locate a news article related to your topic. Provide the citation and with your partner, discuss how the news article contributes to your understanding of your topic.
