Resource Guide for COMM 495: Communication Studies Capstone Course  

Welcome, this research guide was created to assist you in locating, evaluating, and using scholarly resources for COMM 495, Communication Studies Capstone Course. Here you will find listed a variety of resources to help you as you conduct your research specifically for this class.

Learning the basics of how to search will save you much time and frustration. These tips and techniques can be used for any research you may be doing, no matter what the topic might be.

• Finding and Combining Search Terms: Using OR
• Finding and Combining Search Terms: Using AND
• Excluding Search Terms: Using NOT
• Searching for an Exact Phrase: Using Quotation Marks
• Finding Variations of Search Terms: Using Truncation
• Keyword Searching
• Subject Searching
• Thesauri

Finding and Combining Search Terms: Using OR

Determining the correct search terminology is “half the battle.” To begin this process list possible search terms and include any synonyms, using OR between each word.

Using OR

Finding and Combining Search Terms: Using AND

If you want more than one term to be included in your search use AND between the terms. This is used to narrow a search.

Using AND

 Excluding Search Terms: Using NOT

There may be times when you need to exclude a term altogether in order to focus your search.

Using NOT

  

Searching for an Exact Phrase: Using Quotation Marks

Many library databases work similarly to Google -- that is, when you want to search for an exact phrase rather than for separate keywords, you should enclose the phrase within quotation marks.

Finding Variations of Search Terms: Using Truncation

Another useful trick is to truncate the search term.

• The usual symbol is an asterisk (*), but check the database HELP screen for to determine the symbol for that database.
• Although this is a useful tool, especially if you want to retrieve results with all possible word endings, it can also add unrelated items to your results.
• Some databases may not allow truncated words if the possible results are too large and if this happens add more of the root word.

Truncation

Keyword Searching

If you are unsure of the correct vocabulary for a particular database, begin with a keyword search, sometimes referred to as a default search.

Keyword searching looks for the search term(s) anywhere in the record for an article, which means that the keyword(s) could be located in the article's title, abstract, or body, or the keyword might be a subject term that the database uses. A keyword search usually retrieves numerous records, many of which may prove to be totally unrelated to your topic. But keyword searching is a perfectly acceptable way to begin a database search; you can always narrow your search if you find that too many records are retrieved.

Subject Searching

Subject terms (also sometimes called descriptors) are words that are chosen from a set list and that are used by the editors of a database to describe all of the articles in the database that deal with a particular topic.

lf you are unsure of the specific subject/descriptor term that a database uses for your topic, try first conducting a keyword search. Then, when you find an article that looks useful for your topic, open up the record for that article (by clicking on the article title) and take a look at the subject terms that the database's editors assigned to the article.

You can then re-run your search using those subject terms instead of or in addition to the terms that you originally used. This should retrieve articles that are more relevant to your research topic.

Subject Searching

Thesauri

Some databases also include an online thesaurus in which you can enter a keyword and see the terms that the database uses for your keyword. Consulting a database's thesaurus is especially useful as a way of finding related terms that you might not have considered.

Thesauri