COMM 205 Trenary

Video 1: Assignment guidelines, databases to search and keyword searching

Video 2: Finding help

Rip Current Journal assignment:

• Your topic may be about any communication relationship challenge. Find a scholarly (academic) journal article of interest to you on any relationship challenges.
• Cite in APA format 
• Briefly summarize the article's contents in your first paragraph (what did the researchers find?), and offer your opinion/critique about the article in your second paragraph.

Note: You can simultaneously search dozens of Ebsco databases by opening Academic Search Ultimate below. This will increase the number of results that you get from searches. 

Select Choose Databases, Select All. Now you are searching multiple databases at once!

Search strategy

Use a broad keyword or keyword phrase to get a big number of results starting out. Then, use one or two more keywords to narrow your results until you have a browse-able number of results that are a good fit for your topic. This is known as a "broad-to-narrow" search strategy.

"I'm interested to know if online applications help people who are dating and in long distance relationships."

Here's an example:

Keywords:  ​long distance relationships      dating         online       communication 

Long distance relationships = 3000+ results.

Add online = 249 results.

Add communication = 118. Notice your results are now much more specific.

Checkmark the Peer Reviewed box on the left side of your screen = 81 results.  

• No link to "Full Text?" The Find It button searches for the article in our other databases.
• In your results list, which of these are original research studies? Tip: find the METHODS section. See the example article in the box on the left side of this page. 

​ProQuest RefWorks - Source citation tool

Please sign into your RefWorks account. Keep RefWorks open in a tab at the top of your web browser.

RefWorks Guide - This guide can help you learn basic and advanced uses of the RefWorks tool.