7.5 Fantastic Sources and Where to Find Them

Once you know the types of sources you’re looking for, it’s time to find them.

Conducting Effective Online Searches

The Internet is filled with sources: some of them useful, some of them not. Watch this short video to learn how to effectively find information on a search engine such as Google.

Finding Scholarly Articles

Most scholarly articles are housed in specialized databases. Libraries (public, school, or company) often provide access to scholarly databases by paying a subscription fee for patrons. For instance, the FHSU Forsyth Library provides access to more than 200 databases available free to people affiliated with the University. You can search for a journal title or view a list of databases by subject in these databases.

Databases that aren’t subject-specific are called general databases. Google Scholar is a free general scholarly database available to all who have access to the Internet.

The Forsyth librarians and the BCOM faculty have collaborated to create a research guide for BCOM301 Strategic Business Communication that identifies several databases that should be helpful for your research in this class and in business.

Searching Databases

Sometimes, a little knowledge about how to do precise searches can save you a lot of time. Most of the information you will use for your academic papers and projects will come from books and articles that you will find via library databases. When first using a database, be sure and move the scroll bar all the way up and down to see what searching and limiting options you have. Click on the advanced search and scroll up and down again. In some databases you will see the options change a bit once you have done a search or when you are further along in the process. Read the pages that appear so you can take advantage of all your search options. To find relevant sources when searching Google or a research database you should:

1. Identify the main concepts in your research question. Stick to nouns. For example, if your research question was “How is student housing affected by rising mortgage rates?” your main concepts would be ‘mortgage rates’ and ‘students.’
2. Find related search terms. You might choose to use a thesaurus for this. For example, you might search for “affordability crisis” or (if you have discovered that some students have faced homelessness because they were unable to afford a place to live) “homelessness” or “housing vulnerability.”
3. Try using subject headings instead of keywords. When you visit the Forsyth library, you will see research guides for different topics. You can also search for subject headings within databases. The Forsyth librarians and the BCOM faculty have collaborated to create a research guide for BCOM301 Strategic Business Communication that identifies several databases that should be helpful for your research in this class and in business.

4. When searching in databases (or Google) us quotation marks around phrases to make your search more specific. For example, you would search for “common cold” so you don’t get info on cold war or cold weather.

5. Use wildcard and truncation symbols to broaden your search. For example, if you type “wom?n” into a search engine, it will show results for “woman’ and “women.” If you type “mathemat*” into a search engine, it will show results for both “mathematician” and “mathematics.”

6. Use phrases like “and,” “or,” and “not” (Boolean operators) to make your search more specific or broad. For example, if you were searching a job board to try to find a job as a network administrator, but you kept finding positions as a network manager, you might search for “network administrator NOT manager.”

   Every time you add another word by combining it with an AND, you will get fewer results: you will find fewer books or articles. The other thing to note is that most databases default to an AND combination. In other words, if you do not tell the database how you want the words combined and you have typed in more than one word, the database will most likely (but not always) combine them for you using AND. A common mistake is to keep adding words to a search in anticipation that the results will grow.

   The Boolean OR and Boolean NOT are trickier than they look. The results they give you can include many resources off topic in the case of the OR and miss many in the case of the NOT. When used correctly, they can be powerful tools. Boolean OR gets you anything and everything that has either and all the words you type in. It is often used with synonyms. The Boolean NOT omits terms from your search. An example of a good use of the Boolean NOT would be if you are interested in the organizations protecting Dolphin habitat off the coast of Miami and you were retrieving a lot of information about the Miami Dolphins football team. Since it is completely off topic, you could try NOT football.

When Are News Sources Helpful?

• You need breaking news or historical perspectives on a topic (what people were saying at the time).
• You need to learn more about a culture, place, or time period from its own sources.
• You want to keep up with what is going in the world today.

When Are News Sources of Limited Use?

• You need very detailed analysis by experts.
• You need sources that must be scholarly or modern views on a historical topic.

Other Types of Sources

News articles are typically written by journalists who are experts in investigating and get paid for their work. Usually, journalists will work with an editor to make sure that their work is accurate and fair. Depending on your topic, however, you might seek sources such as:

• Social media posts: Sometimes, experts in a subject will engage in public scholarship over Twitter or social media platforms. For example, professional historians will often share their work with the public on X (Twitter) by relating current events to historical moments. The benefit of this type of scholarship is that it can be very current, and you can often see different scholars interact with one another. The downside is, however, that this information hasn’t been vetted by anyone. You may be witnessing an expert’s “rough draft” thoughts, and they might change their mind based on new information or the peer review process. To know if you should trust a social media post, you’ll also have to know a lot about who’s posting and if they’re credible.
• Blog posts: Though blogging is less popular now than it once was, blogs are still a great way to find out current information about a topic in a format that’s more detailed than social media allows for. For example, a cybersecurity expert might post about a new threat, but they might then write a blog post that outlines their concerns more explicitly and provides extensive proof. Remember that blogs are not vetted by an editor, and often bloggers have a motivation to sell products or services.
• Archives: If your topic involves the past, you might check out an archive. Many museums make their collections available online through archives. The University Archives offers maps, photographs, letters and much more.