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Journal Research Tips

Here are some tips for finding academic/professional journals

Emotional Tips

If you are frustrated while doing the research, I suggest the following:

1.) acknowledge how you feel, (it is ok to be frustrated...)
2.) identify what problems you are facing,
3.) prioritize those problems,
4.) develop possible solutions,
5.) tackle each problem one at a time, in order of priority,
6.) assess how successful your solution is, and
7.) repeat any of the previous steps, as necessary.

Search Terms Tips

1. Before searching a data base, make a list of 5-9 key words on your topic.

2. Use general key words, to help offer more initial results. You can always narrow your results after your first search.

3. Use more specific key words by forming phrases, like "pepperoni pizza" (specific) instead of "pizza" (general)

4. Get new key words from previous search results.

Data Base Tips

1. For general searches, use the Expanded Academic ASAP at http://www.missioncollege.org/lib/database_top.html and select Advanced Search.

2.  To search for a topic in a journal title, use the Expanded Academic ASAP, and select Publication Search and type in the name of the journal, then select the name of that journal in the search results to be able to search for a key word in that journal. You can also click on the journal title of any article to see a list of issues of that journal, if you want.

3. To search for a key word as a subject -- which helps narrow your search -- use the Expanded Academic ASAP, and select Subject Search.

4. Use the number of results to help determine whether your key word search terms are too general or too specific.

Advanced Search Tips

1. To make your search more specific, you can:

Search under a general key word, and then search again within those results with a second key word, using the search engine on the left-hand side of the screen, or

Search under a general key word, and then select to narrow results by subject in the search field on the left-hand side of the screen.

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Updated: Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 2:25:16 PM by Aaron Malchow

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3/18/2010; 5:12:18 PM

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