RESEARCH AT SFU LIBRARY
Yolanda S Koscielski
Psychology & Criminology Librarian
January 16, 2015
ysk6@sfu.ca
Slide show is linked from the Library’s Psychology Research Guide
OBJECTIVES
Learn about:
1. Resources (you might not know about)
2. The building blocks of literature
reviews
Pre-Quiz
Literature Reviews – Core Parts
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Search multiple databases
Use non-database search methods
Design highly-sensitive searches
Search non-article info types
Systematically avoid bias in your searches
Document your search strategy (replicability)
Manage your citations in citation management
software
RESOURCES
Comprehensive literature reviews always include
searching more than one source/database
 Most include searching a range of information
types

Journal articles Research syntheses Conference
papers Policy papers Technical reports Books
Reviews Dissertations Grey literature Statistical
sources
 Non-English content, International content


Efforts to avoid searching biases reflected in
articulated inclusion and exclusion criteria
THE LIBRARY WEBSITE AND CATALOGUE
What are your favourite search tools?

List your top three research resources
Fast Search
Library Search
SFU Library’s
matryoshka dolls
Catalogue
aussiegall. (2006). Russian dolls. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/288377539/
CATALOGUE
•Does NOT index journal articles individually
•When doing a keyword search, search terms are
highlighted in the library record
•Check out subject headings at the bottom of the
record for related material
SFU’S “GOOGLE” – FAST SEARCH
•Books
•eBooks
•Journal Articles
•Newspaper Articles
•Images
•Videos/DVDs
•Music
All catalogue
content, PLUS
journal articles +
newspaper articles
– *many*
•Maps
•SFU
theses/dissertations
•Government
documents
•Sound recordings
(CBC Ideas)
8
FAST SEARCH

Is really great, but…





Subject terms not useful for literature review
Missing some content; coverage is maybe 95% of SFU
Library’s journal content
Not mapped to a specific subject, with associated search
limiters and features (controlled vocabularies, populations,
etc.)
Lots of citation “noise”
New features:
Multiple facets can be selected
 Abstract preview pane

LIBRARY SEARCH
Library Search
Criminology 220
All catalogue content,
PLUS Fast Search
Content, PLUS the
library’s website,
Summit, Best Bets,
external pages.
10
GOOGLE!
• Discussions around Google Scholar vs subject
databases focus more on values and ideals:
• The validity of the peer-review process to
assess good science
• The influence of for-profit publishing on
scientific innovation
• The onus of responsibility for vetting
information
• Bottom line: recommendation to use both
SOME GOOGLE STRENGTHS
1. Casting a wider net
2. Reveals the most popular articles
3. High volume of articles retrieved (1 to 1.6
million records searched as of Nov 2014)
4. Google’s algorithm compensates for search
weaknesses (1st to relevancy rank)
5. Full-text indexing is now part of GS
(working with publishers)
6. Key article feature: can search within citing
articles
SOME GOOGLE STRENGTHS
7. Known-item searching
8. Long-tail searching (when search terms are
low-occurring)
9. Times cited tool (covers grey lit) + search
within citing articles feature
10. Books – out-of-copyright full-text access,
locating a quote
11. US case law, grey literature, academic
websites, Institutional Repositories
SOME GOOGLE WEAKNESSES
1. Low level of subject + author collocation
2. Not mapped to a specific discipline
3. Less search sophistication & manipulation (e.g.
limits to “academic” lit, format type)
4. Pseudo-boolean operators
5. Missing deep data (e.g., statistics)
6. Not usually free
• Search via library
7. Mysterious algorithms (Coverage? Publishers?
Opposite of transparent sources like PsycINFO).
SOME GOOGLE WEAKNESSES
8. Challenging to run searches that combine
common words (e.g. Art + Time)
9. New articles might not be pushed up
(popularity over currency)
10. Date limiter misleading: might refer to date
added to Google rather than article date
11. Indexes articles from “predatory publishers”,
perhaps harder to identify if working outside of
your field
SUBJECT DATABASES
• Examples: PsycTESTS, Criminal Justice Abstracts
• Mapped to a disciplinary perspective
• High-quality, detailed metadata allows for limits
and collocation related to your field
• Access to specialized material (e.g., tests, white
papers, data)
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
•
•
•
•
Overview of your topic / the “big picture”
Particularly helpful if working outside your area
Written with the academic in mind, often by specialists
in the field
Use the bibliography to identify key articles, studies,
authors, etc.
•
•
•
•
Check Research Guides or Online Reference Sources web
pages
Search for encyclopedia + [topic] in one our search tools
Gale Virtual Reference Library or Sage Knowledge
3rd floor collection
•
Encyclopedia of Sleep
PSYCTESTS
Indexes 18,000+ Psychology tests, measures, assessments
 Mostly unpublished, non-commercial tests
 Scoring key usually not included (65 tests only with key)
 Descriptive test information + links to materials describing
test: peer-reviewed literature, technical reports, &
dissertations.
 (Demo – SFU affiliation)

DIGITAL DISSERTATIONS
Masters Theses and PhD Dissertations
 Use the lit reviews of others (local or Canadian material
especially)!


Search for SFU-only theses


Dissertations & Theses @ Simon Fraser University
Or search globally


Data sources, statistics, measures
Digital Dissertations
Too old to be digitized yet? Try searching the Institutional
Repository of the institution

SFU’s IR is called Summit
COPYRIGHT


Copyright at SFU Library for Graduate Students
The Copyright Officer and Copyright Librarian
will:
Assist with copyright questions/issues pertaining to
your thesis.
 Assist with any other copyright questions (e.g.,
regarding teaching, non-thesis publications, etc...)
 Meet with you in person, over the phone, or via email:
copy@sfu.ca

A [VERY] SHORT
INTRODUCTION TO
MANAGEMENT
DATA
Carla Graebner, Data Curator and Digital
Preservation Project Manager (Librarian)
WHAT
•
DMP: A series of steps to ensure your data*
remains safe and accessible**
•
*Data = anything from image/sound files to tabular
data to lab notes. It’s whatever your you base your
scholarly output on.
•
**Accessible = determined by you, agency funders,
publishers, etc.
WHY?
•
Maintains research integrity over time
Assists in continued access
 Allows replicability

Enhances scholarly reputation
• Data citation (hurrah!)
• Likely to be required by granting agencies and
publishers
•
HOW?

Create and implement a ‘Data Management
Plan’:





Organize your data (e.g., file naming conventions)
Document your data (e.g., metadata standards)
Back-up your data (e.g., data storage location)
Share your data (e.g., set sharing parameters)
Curate your data (e.g., normalize selected data)
II. LITERATURE REVIEWS
Identify and search within a wide range of sources
 Within each source – searched separately – choose
the right search terms and combine them in an
effective way
 Level of meticulousness relates to how tolerant
your type of literature review is to missing some
sources


Range: From Abstract Buffet (scoping review) to
Systematic Review
LITERATURE REVIEW PROCESS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Identify key concepts
List relevant search terms
Search each concept separately
Combine concepts
Modify
Repeat steps 1 to 5 in each
database or source
A. SEARCH TERMS
Discuss the impact of the media on the body
image of young women.
•Identify key concepts
•Brainstorm synonyms and related words for
each concept
SEARCH TERMS
Discuss the impact of the media on the
body image of young women.
•Identify key concepts
•Brainstorm synonyms and related words
for each concept
TOPIC SCOPE

Do you have a subject area, topic, or thesis?
Subject is very broad: freedom of information,
Charter of Rights and mental illness
 Topic adds a second concept, explores a relationship
or question between the two concepts: testosterone
levels in sex offenders, effect of art therapy on
recidivism
 Thesis: you are making an assertion and providing
supportive evidence: Art therapy decreases
recidivism in young offenders

SEARCH TERMS
•Media: television, magazines, movies, films, celebrities, music,
fashion, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
•Body Image: self esteem, self concept, body conscious, identity
•Young Women: teenage, teenager, teen, youth, adolescent,
adolescence, women, woman, female
Tips:
- consider the terminology of the time period
- consider narrowing of your focus (ie. Media is a big
topic, magazines is a more manageable topic)
SUBJECT HEADINGS
Subject headings: a systematic, hierarchical, and finite language
used for describing subjects/concepts.
Articles and books will usually have 3-8 subject headings assigned
to their citation or bibliographic record. This is human indexing.
Keyword searching based on computer indexing
SH particularly useful for high volume and disambiguation
SUBJECT HEADINGS
• Subject headings/descriptors are a standard field in most
databases
• Subject Headings are unique to each database:
• MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) of PubMed
• PsycINFO subject headings for PsycINFO
• Can start with thesaurus directly or use a keyword search
• Sometimes keywords = subject headings
• Demo – catalogue, Medline
MeSH 2014  anemia (expand)  anemia (aplastic)  etc.
 fanconi anemia (SH v. regular search)
SUBJECT HEADINGS
keyword
Type A
personality
PsycINFO
subject heading
Coronary
Prone
Behavior
Demo: PsycINFO (“Type A personality”)
Subject headings
Example:
BT (Broader Terms)
NT (Narrower Terms)
RT (Related Terms)
EXPLODE (means include all subordinate terms)
Field searching, limit to title
Search Strategies
BOOLEAN OPERATORS

Connect concepts
(magazine AND body image)

Search for related terms
(teen OR youth OR adolescent)

Exclude irrelevant terms
(woman NOT man)
AND / OR
Magazines AND body image
Magazines
Body
image
Magazines OR body image
SEARCH STRATEGIES - CHARACTERS
•Searching for a phrase – use quotation marks
“body image”
•Alternative spellings & endings – use truncation
(asterisks) after the root of the word
•Use wildcard to pick up word variants (colo#r =
colour or color); not necessarily automatized
Teen* picks up teen, teens, teenage, teenager,
teenagers
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
(DE "Social Media") OR Facebook OR LinkedIN OR Twitter
AND
(DE "Body Image“) OR “body image” OR (DE "Body Image
Disturbances")
AND
teen* OR adolescen*
Search Limits can be used as well (e.g., Age Groups)
SAVED SEARCHES
Create account in EBSCO to keep track of your
searches
 Combine searches in “saved history”
 Set up alerts for new articles
 Use citation manager software like RefWorks,
Zotero, Mendeley, to keep track of citations and
de-duplicate
 Demo – search history (search history  saved
searches  retrieve saved search)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Campbell Collaboration: http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews:
http://cufts2.lib.sfu.ca/CRDB4/BVAS/resource/9990
Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions:
http://handbook.cochrane.org/
PRISMA website: http://www.prisma-statement.org/statement.htm (checklist and flow
diagram)
Sage Research Methods Online: http://cufts2.lib.sfu.ca/CRDB4/BVAS/resource/9990
SFU Library Guide to Systematic Reviews: http://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/subjectguides/health-sciences/hsci891-3
Searching for studies: A guide to information retrieval for Campbell Systematic Reviews
(2010)
Questions?
Yolanda S Koscielski
ysk6@sfu.ca