Southern Illinois University Carbondale
State the topic or problem.
Circle your key terms. 3-4 at most.
Key terms for WED: occupation, career, job, technical, human resources, workforce, adult education, in-service training, training, business education, occupational psychology, organizational behavior, vocational education, distance education, individualized education, computer assisted…
Want to use a specific database or index? Use the A-Z list. Not sure which database you need? Check the databases grouped by subject.
What is suggested for Workforce Education?
Academic Search Complete from EBSCO is a good starting point. Academic Search Complete allows you to limit your search to scholarly journals and has many articles in full text.
Social science research studies collect and report on data derived from observation or experiments. The following keywords are usually found in the article’s abstract: evaluation, observation, comparisons, practices, questionnaires, interviews, controlled studies, case studies, user studies, surveys, experimental research, qualitative, quantitative, sampling, measurement, phenomenological, empirical, grounded theory.
Type in your key terms (natural language). Note that Academic Search Complete, like many databases, uses its own controlled vocabulary or descriptors. Using the controlled vocabulary will speed your search.
Business Source Complete is also useful for Workforce Education students.
ERIC is another useful database . We librarians prefer the OVID interface. Enter your original key terms (ERIC uses $ and * symbols for truncation).
Look for articles that have been cited by other authors. Citing indicates other researchers considered the article useful. Take these important authors and check them out through Google Scholar.
Remember! Some important articles are not available full text. If Morris Library does not own the journal or the article is not available through one of our databases, fill out an interlibrary loan request. It does not cost anything but time, so start your literature search early! Circulation will email you when the article has arrived. They use your SIU email account.
Make sure you evaluate each resource for currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose. If you need help identifying the value of a source, please ask a librarian.
Always be able to put your fingers on the citations and complete text of your working bibliography.; Some researchers like to use EndNote Online to manage their citations; others prefer Zotero. Both are free!
Once you have collected your materials, go through and make notes about their topics. Organize them into folders and look for common themes. Is your research thinner in some areas more than others?
Make an appointment with the Writing Center in Morris Library Room 236 to edit your project. They offer sessions online and face-to-face. https://write.siu.edu/
