Students in some sections of EDPS 222 are asked to find research-based journal articles to explore how various sociodemographic variables can affect learning and the classroom environment for K-12 students in the United States.
It is possible to do a very sophisticated multi-step search in library databases to create a set of articles that might work well for this assignment. EMU librarians have worked out the searches for you. Your task is to learn how to work with a search results list to find and use the best articles for the assignment.
Step 1: Learn How to Recognize a Scholarly Research Article
Use the top box on the page above to explore Anatomy of a Scholarly article and look at the example of a scholarly research article.
If you want to learn more about different types of articles, explore resources on the rest of the page.
Step 2: Execute your search
Find the box for the variable you want to search. There will be links to searches in two databases. Just use the link(s) to execute the search(es).
Now you have a list of potential articles to work with.
Step 3: Learn how to work with the list of results
Read the Practical Tips and the advice on How to Choose Articles.
Step 4: Find the full text of articles you have chosen.
You can almost always get the full text, but you may need to try multiple links. This step by step handout will help!
Step 5: Create and edit the APA citations for your articles
You can get a "starter" citation using the cite feature in the database (see practical tips).
The citation might not be perfect, so you may need to edit the citation using this info on APA.
Optional:
If you want help from a librarian, try these options for Research Help.
If you want to learn how to do expert searches for other assignments, complete the Search Tutorial.
Students will:
1. identify common elements of scholarly research articles, and be able to discern when a item is some other type of document such as a book review, dissertation, literature review, or professional article
2. efficiently work with a results list using tools such as date limiters, abstracts & keywords, folders, and citation shortcuts
3. evaluate articles based on relevancy, format, readability, and personal interest
4. use persistent methods to obtain the full text of articles
5. know how to ask librarians for help and ways to learn advanced search techniques