Welcome to the Principles of Planning Guide!
- In-Class ActivityWe'll use this Padlet activity to brainstorm and search together in class.
This guide provides links and information to help you with your research needs!
- Find Articles - search through library holdings (both print and electronic) to get case studies via library-owned databases.
- Find Books - using the library's public access catalog, search the holdings of both Library and the other libraries within the entire University System of Maryland. If needed, it is also possible to easily search through other libraries for additional books not held by SU or other USM system libraries.
- Data & Maps - get your hands on local and international data, as well as demographic data & maps - local, national, world.
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
- 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.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowElectronic archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
- Social Sciences Abstracts This link opens in a new windowProvides indexing and abstracts for more than 520 publications with some links to full-text in other EBSCO databases.
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new windowScienceDirect's Freedom Collection includes extensive full-text journal coverage of the physical and biological sciences, as well as some coverage of the social sciences and humanities.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowEnables users to search current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from thousands of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world.
- 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.
- Natural Science Collection This link opens in a new windowThe Natural Science Collection of databases provides access to scholarly and other learned publications in agriculture, aquatic science, atmospheric science, biology, earth science, environmental science, and many other related subject areas.
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.
