Search Strategies

I must admit, when it came down to actually researching for my podcast, I was very intimidated. Where do you start? When do you stop? How long will it take? All these questions left me uncertain about the situation so I  met up with my TA to get some pointers and build my confidence. The meeting helped me immensely and I was suddenly eager to get to the library and apply all the researching skills I had learned.

            During the research process, Google Scholar and the York University Library Databases were my best friends. A benefit to both is that they're online, thus being easily accessible no matter where you are...as long as there's Wi-Fi. Most of them also provide pdf files you can download, making the scholarly articles accessible whether you have Wi-Fi or not. Most of the articles found through these resources passed my credibility test and even provided a pre-made citation.

            The thing about library databases is that if you aren't a member of the particular database community, you have no access to the articles/books that it provides. Being a student at York University, I had access to its library database, but in terms of expanding my research to say, the University of Toronto's library, I'd have a bit of a challenge ahead of me. Another downfall surrounding library databases is that, to access some sources, you actually have to check out the book. It taunts you with information you have to go out of your way to get. The library database wasn't as easy to navigate as Google Scholar because of the Boolean system required to find relevant information. I just want to type and go!

            That is why I prefer Google Scholar. It is easier to navigate, I can type a phrase in the search bar and still find relevant sources, and I find that Google Scholar uncovers more sources than a library database would. One thing that annoys me with Google Scholar is that some articles are advertised as "abstracts" and require you to be a member of a company's database to access the information. Luckily, York University is subscribed to many of these databases so if I'm connected to the York University network, accessing information isn't a big concern. Ultimately, I will continue to rely on Google Scholar for future research.

            But let's not rule out library databases entirely. They're not useless. Some articles/books that I found on library databases referred me to experts or other works that I could search in Google Scholar. This method allowed me to acquire even more useful sources for my podcast. I found that examining the bibliographies of relevant texts allowed me to become more familiar with the experts of the particular field I was researching about. It's interesting to see how often these experts have actually worked together to produce these academic sources.