Emergency & Disaster Management 332, 435, and 457: Content Analysis assignment - Johnson

Not everything is available through a Google search. Through the library, you have access to subscription content such as scholarly journals, newspapers, and magazines.

When searching library resources, there are a couple things to keep in mind to make the most of your search.

• Don't use full sentences.

If you type a full sentence into a library resource's search bar, you're not going to get good results. Rather than using a full sentence, use keywords. Keywords are simply the most important words around your topic; they are the who, what, where, and when. So, instead of searching What is the rate of burnout in ICU nurses?, try searching intensive care nurses burnout

• Try synonyms.

The name you use for something may not be the same name used by others. If you are not getting a lot of results with your keyword search, try thinking of different words used to describe the same thing. For instance, if your search for resources about burnout rates among ICU nurses wasn't yielding many results, you could try healthcare workers or medical professionals in place of nurses.

Here are some additional tips to get better results while searching library resources.

• Use AND/OR/NOT to combine/exclude words or phrases (this is called Boolean Searching):

Examples: 

• Basketball AND football = articles that have both basketball and football as topics together.
• Basketball OR football = articles that have either basketball or football (or both) as topics. 
• Basketball NOT football = articles that are about basketball and that exclude football (be careful, this can exclude a lot of useful resources since it will exclude articles that have both basketball and football together).
• Phrase searching:

Put quotation marks around words you want to search as a phrase. Not generally used for single words.

Examples:

• "North Carolina"
• "Western Carolina University"
• "confirmation bias"
• Searching on the root word (also called Truncation):

Words may be shortened (truncated) using an asterisk. Most searches do this automatically, though Hunter Library's catalog search doesn't.

Examples:

• comput* (will find computing, computers, computerization, etc.)
• librar* (will find libraries, librarians, librarianship, etc.)

Search the library catalog to find books, DVDs, streaming films, and more. Please note that you can find scholarly journals in the library catalog, but you cannot search for specific journal articles in the catalog.

You can search the library catalog using the search box just below, or by clicking Books on the Hunter Library homepage.

Searching in interdisciplinary resources can often be a great starting point in your research. These databases represent a variety of disciplines, so they can help you get a better idea of the scope and breadth of the conversation around your topic.

Recommended interdisciplinary databases:

As the description suggests, subject-specific resources are tailored to research in a single discipline. Using the Criminology & Criminal Justice and Emergency & Disaster Management research guides is a good starting point for subject-specific research and resources. On each guide, you will want to look for the page providing guidance on finding articles.

The guides are linked below, and you can also find them by clicking Research Guides on the Hunter Library homepage.