EDUC 369: Action Research

Brainstorming Keywords

As you think about your topic, work to distill your ideas into keywords. When developing keywords, you don't need to include causal relationship words (e.g. cause, impact, relationship).

As you think about your topic, you can make it more specific by considering any of the following facets:

• Academic environment or educational context
• Age level
• Assessment or testing
• Curriculum
• Educational roles
• Educational programs
• Geographic location
• Research method(s)
• Student characteristics, identity, or demographics
• Teaching method(s)

Using Subject Terms

Articles in library databases are tagged with subject terms. Using subject terms as part of your search strategy can take the guesswork out of keyword searching.

You can discover subject terms as you search, by looking for them under the article title in your results list, or above the abstract in an article record page.

You can also look up subject terms in a database's thesaurus. Here's a video explaining how to search for subject terms in EBSCO databases.

Finally, you can search using subject terms by clicking on them, or changing your search field to subject terms.

Searching Strategically with Boolean Logic

Boolean operators are terms you can use to narrow or broaden your search in a database, library catalog, or a search engine like Google. The three basic operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.  

Why use them?

• To focus a search when you are using multiple terms 
• To include synonyms for your search terms in order to find all variations  
• To exclude terms not relevant to your search

When using Boolean logic to create a search strategy, use double quotation marks (" ") when you are searching for a phrase (words you'd like to keep together).

Using AND

Use the operator "AND" in a search to: 

• Narrow your results 
• Tell the database that ALL the terms must be present in the search results 

Example: california AND "secondary education"

Using OR

Use the operator OR to: 

• Broaden your search by telling the database that ANY of the terms can be present in your results 
• To include synonyms or related concepts for your search terms 

Example: "high school" OR "secondary education"

Using NOT

Use the operator NOT to: 

• Narrow your results  
• Exclude specific words or concepts from your search results 

Example: student AND "mental health" NOT anxiety

Nesting Operators

• Databases usually default to AND as the primary operator and connect concepts tied together with AND first. You can use parentheses ( ) to indicate to the database how you want your terms to be connected.  
• You can put operators together like an algebra equation.

Example: ("mental health" OR anxiety OR depression) AND ("high school" OR secondary) AND student

Using A Single Article to Find More

"Citation chaining" refers to the process of using sources to find more sources. There are two approaches -- forward and backward chaining.

1) Backward chaining

This approach uses one relevant source, or citation, to find more relevant sources on a topic by investigating who published on that particular topic before it was published. You can do this by scanning the works cited list at the end of an article and/or close-reading its literature review section.

2) Forward chaining

Some databases of scholarly articles will include a "cited by" feature, to let you know who referenced that particular article after it was published. Google Scholar does a fantastic job of this -- it's one of the ways you can maximize Google Scholar.

Search for the title of an article, and click the "Cited by..." button underneath it.

Clicking the "Cited by" link will bring up a set of results of citing literature, which you can do another search within. Check the box next to "Search within citing articles" and then enter your search terms in the bar above.

Developing Your Annotations

The BEAM method can be used to help you reflect on how you can use a source of information (article, book chapter, report, etc.) in your research. This reflection can also help you develop your annotations.

The BEAM method asks you to consider how you will use and integrate sources into your paper, and to identify the different roles each source will play in your writing.  Review and reference the definitions below to guide your analysis and selection of sources. 

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Justina Elmore, University of Rochester. Adapted from Kristin M. Woodward & Kate Ganski's "What Could A Writer Do With This Source?" {{cc-by-4.0}}

Reading Academic Literature

Brush up on the parts of scholarly articles using this interactive tutorial from NC State University Libraries.

Learn strategies for structural reading of scholarly articles in this guide from ICPSR.

Organizing Your Sources

The templates below are options for organizing your own research. If you want to use them, please make a copy before adapting or reusing.

Citing Articles in APA

To cite a journal article, you'll need the following information:
 

• Author's name(s) - last name first followed by first initial(s)
• Year of publication - in parentheses
• Title of article - first word, proper nouns, and word after a colon are capitalized
• Title of publication - all words in italics
• Volume number - in italics
• Issue number - no italics
• Page numbers - without p. or the word "page" in front
• DOI, when available - ask a librarian if you need help finding this

Here's an example:
 

Citing Other Sources

APAStyle.org is the most reliable place online to get information about how to cite in this style, including help with in-text citations and your reference list, including lots of example citations for various types of sources.

You can also consult the APA Style Manual from the SCU Library.

Using Databases to Generate Citations

Many library databases will generate citations for you. While the still need proofreading, they can save you some steps in building your bibliography.