Effective Reading Strategies: Heather Weber

Articles from academic journals can be a great way to find specific information on topics you are researching.  Journals can contain quantitative articles like scientific and medical studies, and qualitative articles like analysis of literature and art, with many that span both types, like a psychology study based on clinical trials and observation. 

Locating articles that are not only on the topic you are investigating, but are also relevant to you and the project, is a crucial part of any research process.  Kirkwood Library has a few ways to make this process easier. 

Using the Library Homepage

1. Go to guides.kirkwood.edu.
2. Type your search topics in the search bar at the top of the page. 
   • Use the tabs above the search bar to specify the type of source that is shown in the search results. 
   • Use the drop down menu to the left of the search bar to search by title, author, subject, etc.
3. Once the results are displayed, you can use the filters on the left side of the page to specify the results even more.  Some options that might be helpful:
   • Full Text – the full article is accessible to read and sometimes download
   • Peer Reviewed – the article has gone through multiple reviews by editors and professionals in that field of study
   • Publication Year – the year the article was published.  This can be helpful for some topics and fields of study if it requires more recent information.  Alternatively, if you are searching for resources from a specific time period, a year range can be set as well. 
   • Library – specifies where the resource is.  Selecting “Kirkwood Community College Libraries” will include physical books and any accessible electronic resources.  Changing to only “Main Library” will show only physical resources found at main campus. 
   • Format – If you didn’t use the tabs above the homepage search bar, you can specify the type of resource using this filter. 

A major part of searching are the keywords you use to perform the search.  Using terms that are specific to your topic will help find resources that are relevant and usable in your research. 

Another helpful tool are Boolean operators to specify how the search should treat each of the terms.  The most commonly used ones are as follows:

AND – narrows – specifies that the search terms are linked and both terms are included in returned results
World war 1 AND causes

OR – widens – allows results that have either or both search terms included
Journals OR notebooks

NOT – restricts – excludes a term from search results, and will return results without that term
Community colleges NOT universities

“Quotation marks” – While this is not a Boolean operator, using quotes is very helpful when searching.  They group together two or more words together that will be searched for as one phrase rather than individual words. 
“dessert recipe” NOT brownies

More resources 

New York Public Library
A simple explanation of the way Boolean operators function in a search with Venn diagrams to visualize the searches

University of Alaska - Fairbanks
A more in depth look at how to utilize Boolean operators with visualizations and examples from Google searches

CredoLit Tutorials through Kirkwood
Video tutorials on research techniques and types of resources