This past week, I really enjoyed the readings as well as preparing for the final project. The readings helped me better understand how to utilize ZSR, and the other resources available, to write the my proposal. Library research has always been daunting to me, but I feel much more confident now.
It was also really helpful to use the handout provided by Kyle. It allowed me to structure my research question as well as find helpful tips for research questions. These strategies were especially helpful for me in my search:
- Each main idea and its related terms go in a separate box in the database’s Advanced Search view.
- All related terms are linked with the Boolean Operator OR.
- Multiple-word phrases are grouped with quotation marks. Ex: “standardized testing” will be treated as a single phrase, rather than two separate words.
- Words like testing are truncated using an asterisk. Ex: test* will search simultaneously for test, tests, and testing.
I found these methods incredibly useful, and was able to find many sources that I think I could use for my final project!