Welcome to the Principles of Planning Guide!
- In-Class Searching ActivityOpen this Padlet activity that we'll use to brainstorm and begin searching for sources related to your project.
Types of Sources
Case Study: In the social and life sciences, a case study is a research method involving an up-close, in-depth, and detailed examination of a subject of study, as well as its related contextual conditions. Case studies can be produced by following a formal research method.
Academic Research Paper: In academic publishing, a research paper is an academic work that is usually published in an academic journal. It contains original research results or reviews existing results. Such a paper, also called an article, is only considered valid if it undergoes a process of peer review by one or more referees (who are academics in the same field) who check that the content of the paper is suitable for publication in the journal. A paper may undergo a series of reviews, revisions, and re-submissions before finally being accepted or rejected. Other limiters that also convey this idea: Peer Reviewed, Academic Journal, or Scholarly Journal.
Search for Articles in These Databases
- JSTOR (including ARTSTOR) This link opens in a new windowCore database to find scholarly journals across disciplines.
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new windowExtensive full-text journal coverage of the physical sciences, biological sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
- Natural Science Collection This link opens in a new windowProvides access to scholarly and learned publications in agriculture, aquatic science, atmospheric science, biology, earth science, environmental science, and many other related subject areas.
- GreenFILE This link opens in a new windowThis comprehensive resource draws on the connections between the environment and a variety of disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology.
- Social Sciences Abstracts This link opens in a new windowMore than 520 publications with links to full-text.
- Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new windowAcademic Search Ultimate offers access to an unprecedented collection of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, reports, books, and videos.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowEnables users to search current multidisciplinary information from thousands of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world. Also provides cited reference searching where users can navigate forward, backward, and through the literature that's relevant to their research.
Refine Your Search
Limiters: The search engines below allow you to not only search for journal articles, but to also use their filtering (or limiting) capabilities to limit your search results to *only* academic/scholarly research papers or case studies. . You can usually find these limiters on the left side of the search results page. You can also limit by date, author, publication, topic, and more.
Example of using quotation marks in your search, which helps your keywords stick together as one phrase.
Example of limiters.
