Welcome to the Research Guide for NURT 110! Below is a review of everything you need to know to get started on your research project. If you need help, use the chat box in the lower right-hand corner of the screen or the contact information in the left-hand corner.
Different sources serve different purposes. In your research, you will draw on a variety of sources to ensure you have a quality research project. There are two ways we can classify sources, but type of data/information represented and by audience.
Scholarly sources are written by researchers in a given field for scholars in a given field. Scholarly sources can take the form of journal articles or scholarly books, often called monographs. Scholarly sources are published through a process known as peer-review.
A primary source is a scholarly source that discusses original research.
Secondary sources can be scholarly or popular. Secondary sources summarize existing research. Scholarly secondary sources are often called "reviews" or "meta-analysis".
Popular or Web sources are written by journalists, researchers, government officials, members of the general public, and others with the audience of the general public in mind. Sometimes a source, like data from the WHO or FDA falls in a grey area between scholarly and popular sources. This is data that is published online, but the intended audience may be researchers or professionals in a given field. Information like this is not classified as "scholarly" because it is not published in a peer reviewed journal.
Learning Google search commands can help you find helpful sources when search in Google! Below are some particularly useful search commands:
What it does: Searches within a specific site or domain. Useful for locating information from specific government organizations. Also useful for locating materials more generally from .gov or .edu domains.
Examples: site:who.int or site:.gov
Notes: Be careful if searching for site:.edu. Not all websites that end in .edu are universities or other educational institutions, the domain can be used by anyone.
What it does: Searches for specific file types. Useful for looking for reports, white papers, working papers, or factsheets.
Examples: filetype:pdf
Notes: There may be information you are missing if you limit to one filetype!
Example search: Lyme disease site:who.int filetype:pdf
What it retrieves: This search retrieves pdf files published to the web on the WHO website.
Example search: bt corn site:usda.gov
What it retrieves: This search retrieves any information on bt corn on the USDA website.
CARS is a checklist for evaluating websites
