Marcia's Totebag: Research Skills and Strategies

A journal may be peer-reviewed, but that doesn’t mean that all information in that journal is actually refereed, or reviewed. For example, editorials, letters to the editor, or book reviews aren’t peer-reviewed parts of the journal.   

Use the hints below to get you started.

How do you determine if it’s a peer-reviewed journal article?

• Start with academic or scholarly journals.  You won’t find peer-reviewed articles in popular, newsstand magazines.
• Look for research length, journal articles – not one page overviews of a topic and definitely not book reviews or editorials.

Finding peer-reviewed articles:

1.    Limit your database search to peer-reviewed journals only. Some databases, such as Academic Search Complete and other Ebsco databases have this feature on the initial search screen.

2.    Check Details in the information provided by a Journal Titles search or Ulrichsweb (on the Databases’ list) to determine if the journal is indicated as being peer-reviewed.

3.    Review the journal’s publication details to see if it is peer-reviewed. If you can PHYSICALLY look at the journal, information in the About or Submission sections will provide details on the editorial review process.  If the journal is only available online, look at the details provided within the database about publication.  Academic Search provides a link and provides publication details, including scope and type of journal, including whether it is peer-reviewed.

4.    Look at the official Web site of the journal on the Web.  Check About or Submission Guidelines to see if it states that the journal is peer-reviewed. Don’t just look at web pages about the journal – go to the publisher’s web page for the most accurate information.

 [adapted from http://www.angelo.edu/services/library/handouts/peerrev.php]

Some of your search terms will describe your specific topic and some the nature of your interest.  In both cases, you need to be flexible, observant, and imaginative.  Before searching for journal articles, look for encyclopedia articles or books that might give you an overview of the subject area, describe aspects of it that you were unaware of, and expose you to terminology that had not occurred to you. Exploring an interest in the rhetoric of Japanese gardens, I might discover references to specific types, such as Zen gardens or tea gardens.  I would learn about their history and representation in art, from which I would discover the names of significant artists. I would also realize that my search for journal articles should employ terms such as "design," "composition," "form," or "motif" rather than "rhetoric."  When I began searching for journal articles, I would make use of databases devoted to art and architecture, history, religion, and philosophy, as well as general humanities and rhetorical studies.

Getting Started with Your Research

I recommend that you start by asking yourself concrete questions. As you gain a clearer picture of what you want to accomplish you can generate, and then refine, a plan of action.

• What do I want to know? (Make yourself an initial list of questions)
• What aspects or viewpoints of this topic interest me most? Examples include social, ethical,  psychological, aesthetic, economic, political, and philosophical.

• Am I asking a question that can be answered with fact based research, or is this really a values/opinion/beliefs question? If the latter, what do I need to change to make this a question I can answer on the basis of evidence?

• Do I need background information on people, places, concepts, events? How does my topic fit into a larger system or structure?

• Who (what field of study, group of researchers, organizations, etc.) is likely to have published relevant information or ideas? Who are the recognized experts in those fields?

• Where and in what form are the results of their research likely to be published?

• How should I interpret or evaluate the information I find? Are there things I don’t yet know that would change my interpretation or evaluation of these sources?

• Are there primary (un-interpreted) sources I should consult?  Who would have created them? Have I come across the names of people, documents, programs, events, etc. that would facilitate my search for them?

• What new questions are raised by these sources, both primary and secondary? Has my original question been answered or just made more complicated (and interesting)?

• Remember, there are two layers of research:
  1) a broad search to discover resources and to read some background information
  2) specific searches for information once you've focused your topic.
   

Advanced Search (if that is not the default)

Dropdown box to choose search field (such as Author, Title, Subject, All Text)

Way to restrict type of document, date,

Way to download a pdf.

Way to email a link or a citation.

Types of Articles You May Find in Education Journals

Types of Scholarly Articles:

Reports on empirical research, which may be quantitative, qualitative, or mixed.

Some examples include case studies,observational research (laboratory or naturalistic), surveys, experiments testing the relationship between variables, etc.

Theoretical articles that explore the history, philosophy, or other cultural expression of ideas relevant to an understanding of education.

Review articles that critically assess works on a specific topic and which usually include  explanations of conflicts in the literature, an analysis of the field and its significance, and possible issues that should be considered in future research.

Types of Non-scholarly Articles:

Personal perspectives, which may take the form of an essay, an editorial, a blog, or other undocumented genre.

Articles in newspapers and general interest magazines.

Interviews (these may be primary sources, but they are not documented research).

Practical advice or tips based on personal experience.

Letters to the editor.

Good research begins with clear thinking about the assigned task. The best way to start a research paper is to make sure you know what you are supposed to do, so reread the assignment and underline or highlight the critical phrases.  These are the ones that tell you the subject, the kinds of resources you should use, the expected length, and the due date.

For this assignment, you have two "seed" texts that are supposed to be included as required sources, as spurs to your thinking about the subject, and as critical foundations to the argument you will make and develop.  Reread both of these texts, then, on a separate sheet of paper, write down what you take to be their basic arguments, the nature of the evidence they use (surveys? interviews? laboratory experiments? data analysis? quotations from other published texts?), and the key words or phrases that best capture their subject focus. Doing all this will help you clarify your thoughts, give you a firm basis for comparing the two texts, and help you develop a strategy for finding and choosing the third text you will use.

Since both of your seed texts reflect the authors' strongly held opinions, it's probably a good idea to get some information from a more neutral source.  This kind of background information won't serve as your third, scholarly source.  It will just provide a context within which you can place the two opinion pieces.  In this case, a subject encyclopedia, such as the Encyclopedia of Education and a general source, such as CQ Researcher, can both be helpful in defining the history, scope and divisions of a topic and by providing specialized terminology or names you can use in keyword or subject searches in an article database. Also, since these are opinion pieces, it would be a good idea to find out more about the authors, in order to determine how much they know about their subject and how emotionally, professionally, or financially they might be invested in persuding their readers.  A Google search will easily bring up the web pages of these two well know authors, as well as material that others have written about them.

The most effective researchers use what they know to find what they don't know. So here's where the notes you made on the seed articles and background articles will come in handy.  The databases also have some special features that will aid your search.

1. You can use keywords from the original articles or the background aricles as search terms. Look at the subject headings assigned  to the articles you find; you may want to use some of them in a new search.

2. You can use the names of authors of known articles to see if they have written other articles on the same or similar topics.

3. You can use articles cited in the bibliographies of articles you  already know about.

4. You can use articles that cite the articles you know about in their bibiliographies.

5. You can look at the tables of contents of the journals that have published relevant articles, to see if they have published other, similar articles.