Research by Subject: Journalism & Media Studies: JMS 310W Tip Sheet

Links and handouts used in class

Constructing a search strategy

Evaluating information sources

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Checklist for Evaluating Web Pages
This is a copy of the 5W + 1H checklist we used in class.
Google Scholar Tips
Google Scholar provides a simple way to search broadly for scholarly literature, including articles, theses, books and more from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. This guides provides tips for using advanced searching features.
JMS 310W Class Handout
This is a copy of the handout we used in class.

Here is a summary of what we practiced during the class session.

State your question as a sentence.
Identify key concepts that must be present in the information source; use the connector AND.
Consider related terms that might be used for a key concept; use the connector OR
Use truncation symbol for word variations; use an * (asterisk) or most databases; Lexis/Nexis uses ! (exclamation mark).
Use “ “ (double quotation) for phrases. Don’t overuse phrase searching. Consider proximity connectors for phrase variation: n# or w#.

Use OneSearch or the library databases to locate:

Books Historical, scholarly, research, summary and in-depth	Journals Scholarly, research, in-depth, bibliography
Government Publications Research, primary, statistics	Magazines Current, popular culture, opinions, summary
Journals Scholarly, research, in-depth, bibliography	Newspapers Current events, popular, opinions
Trade/Professional Practitioner perspective, trends, products, technique

Data resources including country, industry, and company reports	Case law and legal information
Tests and Measures, and research methodology	Images and videos

Web/Internet

Use Google Scholar

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Good luck on your research project!