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SOCW 4362 Social Research

This guide is intended to help students learn basic research skills for the SOCW 4362 Social Research Course.

What do you want to know?

Formulating your research question is simple. Consider these questions: What do you want to know from your research? What are your hoping to prove or disprove with your research? What knowledge are you hoping to gain from your research?

Brainstorm keywords on your topic and formulate your question around those keywords.

Boolean Operators

 

The above Database uses Boolean Operators and search terms to find articles.

Boolean Operators are AND, OR, NOT. Multiple operators can be used at once.

When using Boolean Operators it is important to remember:

AND means;

  1. All selected search terms must be present in the article results,
  2. Narrows your search results to the selected search terms.

Example: "Social Work" AND "Ethics" will result in a search of articles that ONLY have both terms present in the title/abstract.

OR means;

  1. Either selected search term may be present in article results,
  2. Expands your search results to include articles with EITHER search term.

Example: "Social Work" OR "Ethics" will result in a search of articles with either search term present in the title/abstract. Not all articles retrieved will be relevant to your topic and/or research question.

NOT means;

  1. The second search term will be exclude from the search results,
  2. Refines your search results

Example: "Social Work" NOT "Ethics" will result in a search of articles on Social Work that do not include/discuss the topic of Ethics in Social Work. Articles could include Social Work care practice implementation in rural areas, or Social Work innovative practices.

Brainstorm Search Terms and Keywords

Brainstorm search terms by:

  • Considering the who, what, where, when, why of your research questions
  • Searching reference sources
  • Exploring a database's thesaurus
  • Brainstorming keywords with your instructor, a librarian, or your friend

Gale OneFile: Topic Finder

Most Gale databases have a "Topic Finder" feature. In the example database above choose the Topic Finder option at the top. Then type in your research topic (ex. "social work") into the search bar. A graphic will generate with topics and/or search terms you can use in your research. You can click on one of the tiles and it will show you the results that are relevant to that term. You can continue to filter and refine your search terms by clicking on the smaller tiles within.

screen shot of topic finder feature in Gale OneFile: Health and Medicine database

screen shot of tipic finder in Gale OneFile Health and Medicine database