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EDUC 8310: Research in Education (Extended Campus - Catherine Leahy-Brine)

This guide is for students enrolled at Fitchburg State through the Catherine Leahy-Brine extended campus program.

Instruction Session Presentation

Important Forms

And, Or, Not: How to Combine Your Search Terms

Combine your search terms with AND, OR, NOT:

These are called Boolean Operators or search commands for describing what you want to find in a database.
AND NARROWS RESULTS results must include both words e.g. athletes AND injuries
OR BROADENS RESULTS results can include either word e.g. athletes OR players
NOT NARROWS RESULTS results must not include the second word e.g. athletes NOT professional

Peer-reviewed, Scholarly Articles

Some databases provide an option to narrow your result list to articles from peer-reviewed, scholarly journals. When you select this option the database will filter out any books, articles published in popular or trade journals, audio and video files, etc. In the field of Education, Academic Search Complete, ERIC and Proquest Education Journals all have this option. Even when you know a journal is peer-reviewed, it does not mean that every article in that journal is of a "scholarly" level. Scholarly articles contain original research and are reviewed by a panel of experts before being published. However, book reviews or special feature sections, which are usually brief and offer opinions rather then original research, are not scholarly even though they may be published in a scholarly journal.

Your professor may also have specific criteria that you need to follow that is provided on your syllabus or during class.

Use the Scholarly Journal Checklist in the Important Forms box above.