Library searches, whether they be for books or for articles are never as simple as they may appear. In this book search exercise, you will start with keywords, a type of search you probably know well, but there will be options on the results page to refine what you have found in ways not possible through a Google search. In advance of doing this assignment, it is crucial that you read Research Strategies, chapters four to six, very carefully, even if you consider yourself to be a searching whiz. There is a logic to finding information in databases, and you must understand that logic if you want to be efficient in retrieval. For information on the use of Trinity Western's Library OneSearch search tool, see http://libguides.twu.ca/LibraryOneSearch.

Keywords and Controlled Vocabularies

The most difficult concept for students is the difference between keywords and controlled vocabularies.  They are not at all the same, and you need to study the differences until they become very clear to you. The textbook, chapter 5, is devoted to subject headings.

For more information on using Library OneSearch, see the tutorial at http://libguides.twu.ca/LibraryOneSearch.

Bibliographic Managers - EndNote Basic

Bibliographic managers enable you to collect citations to various resources (books, articles, etc.), put them in folders, and generate bibliographies in various formats. They are a bit complex to learn, but they can be a valuable source through your student career and beyond.

EndNote Basic (http://www.myendnoteweb.com) is free (though you need to sign up for an individual account), and you can keep it as long as you want. I strongly recommend that you start using it to formulate citations. You will find a set of tutorials to help you get started at http://libguides.twu.ca/EndNote/.

Creating Formatted Citations without a Bibliographic Manager.

If you find that EndNote Basic is simply too complex for you, it's best if you do not use it for these assignments. 

Books in Library OneSearch have a cite function to create formatted citations. Either click on a title and then see "Cite" on the right, or save some results (as illustrated above) and create formatted citations.

Alternatively, you can create book citations using WorldCat (http://www.worldcat.org.) Here is a guide to help you with that.  Some other e-book platforms allow you to create citations by adding references to a folder and using either the Save or Cite function to the right.

A very useful alternative is Citation Machine (http://www.citationmachine.net/). Formats are listed near the top of the screen. For most uses, "Chicago" is the same as Turabian.

Another tool which can help you format book and article citations is KnightCite (http://webapps.calvin.edu/knightcite/index.php). You will have to select Books from the left, then enter the required information.

Note that computer-generated citations can have serious challenges. Here is an example of things you may need to revise.

For a good guide to Turabian formats use http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/turabian/turabian_citationguide.html. Note that there are TWO Turabian formats, Author-Date and Humanities format. ACTS uses the Humanities format, which calls for footnotes or endnotes rather than short, in-text references. The Turabian site linked above uses the Humanities format.

For a guide to APA, go to http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocAPA.html

Use these one of these guides to "fix" your computer-generated citations.

Read Research Strategies, 6th edition, Chapters Four to Six.

For each of your topics:

A. State your research question.

B. Go to the main search box on the library home page to begin your searching.

For each of your research questions, start with a Books search, choosing the "Title" option, to identify books relevant to your research question. (If you don't get enough results, change the Title option to Keyword):

The Books tab searches both print books and e-books. If you want only one type (e.g. e-books), use the limiter in the column to the left of your results.

Indicate what search words or word combinations you tried (e.g. Homeless* AND Philadelphia).  If your first search doesn't work, use lateral thinking to find other ways that title words could be used to produce relevant results, but avoid multiplying the various search combinations you use.  Instead, use critical thinking to come up with a few narrow and highly relevant terms. Note that the truncation symbol for Library OneSearch is *.

Be sure to indicate what successful Keyword combinations you used. List each search you did on a separate line:

Kingdom Luke
Kingdom Gospel Luke

C. Make a list of ten books relevant to each research question in alphabetical order by author (thus you will have two lists of ten items each). Include author, title, place of publication, publisher and date, and use either the Chicago/Turabian: Humanities or APA format. Turabian is to be used for most topics, but APA can be used for psychology-related topics.  You MUST list all books in this assignment in either Turabian humanities or APA format.  For information on ways to do this, see the backgrounder above. Remember that there are two Turabian formats. You want Chicago/Turabian: Humanities format rather than Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date format.

For Turabian, these examples will explain the differences between the two Turabian formats. Use the second format, not the first:

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date format: Badke, William B. 2005. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Meaning of Everything. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications. Don't use this format.

Chicago/Turabian: Humanities format: Badke, William B. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Meaning of Everything. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2005. Use this format.

For APA format, the citation should look like this:

Badke, W. B. (2005). The hitchhiker's guide to the meaning of everything. Grand Rapids, MI : Kregel Publications, 2005.

 

D. Put an asterisk next to the most highly relevant titles.  These ones will be helpful in guiding you to the correct subject headings to use for the next part of this assignment.

E. Be sure that your bibliographies are in alphabetical order by author. Don't number bibliographies. If you want to make them hanging (normal format in which second and following lines are indented), do this:

Select the whole bibliography Right click Paragraph Special Hanging OK.

1. For your each of your research questions, redo the searches you did in Part Two. This time, narrow your results by subject heading. Please be aware that up to half of all students get their assignments returned because they did not understand subject heading searching. Make sure that you have grasped the concept.
   

   Instructions: To see how to narrow by subject headings, go to http://libguides.twu.ca/LibraryOneSearch/Limiters and view the box entitled: Types of Limiters Available. All subject headings are in the column to the left of your results. If you don't see a subject heading you want, click on the Show More link below the subject heading list.

   Be sure to indicate what subject headings you used, listing each on a separate line. Be sure they are actual subject headings rather than your own created keywords.

2. Make a list of ten books relevant to each research question. Include author, title, place of publication, publisher and date and use either Turabian Notes (not Turabian Reference List) or APA format. The list needs to be in alphabetical order by author. (Your list can include book titles that are the same as those found in your initial search from the main search box, if you wish, though the two lists might be quite different)
   
   

   Note that, with subject searches, success depends on how many results you had before you narrowed by subject.  For example, if you have 700+ results, narrowing by subject should be relatively easy.  If you have only 25 results, there will be fewer subject headings available, and they will lead you to fewer actual results.  Here's how to address this problem, if you encounter it.  Either:

   i. Search more broadly.  Note that books tend to be broad.  Instead of searching on Climate change and Arctic and silver foxes, search on Climate change Arctic.  This will get you a larger number of initial results.

   ii. If you can't search more broadly and you have few initial results, use the subject headings anyway, even if this produces only 2 or 3 results.  Show the subject headings you used, list the results, and explain that there are few because you didn't have many initial results.

   
   

Comment on which search (subject heading or keyword title) was most profitable, and on how much overlap there was in results found by each search (i.e. how many results were the same).

Rubric for Assignment Two.  Highest grade meets these criteria:

• Creative and insightful use of keyword terminology in Library OneSearch to get best results
• Creative and insightful use of subject headings in OneSearch to get best results
• Excellent results that make a real contribution to meeting the needs of the research question
• Lists are each in alphabetical order by author
• Proper formatting of book results
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot issues

Last updated: April 23, 2018