COMM 101 Research Guide Goals
1. Identify keywords from a research topic; use keywords to search a COMM database.
2. Gain familiarity with advanced search techniques such as limiters.
3. Evaluate database article results based on assignment requirements.
4. Gain familiarity with Interlibrary Loan to obtain articles not available in Full Text.
Finding Communication Research
Your assignment requires you to find research articles that contain each of the following sections:
- Research question and/or hypotheses
- Methods section
- Results section
- Discussion Section
This library workshop intends to help you to efficiently and effectively search for articles containing these characteristics through practice database searching using an example topic, evaluation techniques, and double-checking article citations for accuracy.
A note about free web-based tools: Google Scholar, ChatGPT, Gemini, CoPilot, Semantic Scholar, Open Alex, etc.
New college students use Google Scholar and other freebie tools to complete research tasks in high school, and they hesitate to use other tools in the completion of college-level research tasks. Like the meme above, these freebie tools can't search paid databases.
If this is still you, consider my BIG 3 research approach for scholarly sources:
1. Library tools first. If we don't have it in full text or you get very few results, go to step 2.
2. Google Scholar or other tools second. If you find a source but hit a paywall, go to step 3. (still few results? Make an appointment w/me!)
3. Use SU Libraries' Interlibrary Loan service. Use the citation info from the paywalled source to fill out our form. This service is free to students.