Research Skills Tutorial

Module 1: Research Strategies

Learning Outcomes:

1. Focus or narrow a topic appropriately.
2. Recognize the range of possible information types and the differences among them (primary vs. secondary sources, scholarly vs. general-interest sources).
3. Identify appropriate information sources (e.g., subject encyclopedia, scholarly article, government report, statistics) to meet assignment or project goal(s).
4. Recognize and interpret major types of citations (book, article, chapter in book).
5. Identify how much information is appropriate for a particular assignment or project.

Module 2: Effective Database Searching

Learning Outcomes:

1. Recognize content differences among database types: bibliographic, full-text and numeric.
2. Identify the main concepts of a research topic.
3. Develop a list of appropriate search terms.
4. Develop a search strategy appropriate to the selected database.
5. Use Boolean operators successfully to combine search concepts.
6. Understand phrase searching and truncation.
7. Recognize arrangement of search results. (alphabetic, date, relevancy ranking)

Module 3: Finding Books

Learning Outcomes:

1. Know the types of information sources to be found in a library catalog (book, periodical, audio-visual material, government publication).
2. Use the Countess online library system to identify books in the Houghton Memorial Library University Libraries.
3. Understand the difference between word and title searches in the Countess system.
4. Understand the use of subject headings.
5. Use other library catalogs to identify books owned by other libraries, and recognize the differences among various online library catalogs’ search engines.
6. Perform searches successfully in the WorldCat database of the FirstSearch online system to identify other books.
7. Use Interlibrary/Intercampus Loan service, as appropriate.

Module 4: Finding Journal and Periodical Articles

Learning Outcomes:

1. Recognize different types of articles (popular, general-interest; scholarly, professional, research, refereed; opinion, editorial; review).
2. Select the article type appropriate to the assignment or project.
3. Select the index (online or paper format) appropriate to the type of article desired.
4. Identify which journals are owned by the Houghton Memorial Library University Libraries.
5. Determine what other library may own the desired journal.
6. Use Interlibrary/Intercampus Loan service, as appropriate.

Module 5: Accessing US Federal Government Documents

Learning Outcomes:

1. Know the types of information to be found in government documents.
2. Identify useful government documents.
3. Locate federal government documents in depository libraries.
4. Access federal government documents online.
5. Know how to acquire federal government documents.
6. Identify and locate state government documents.
7. Identify and locate municipal government documents.

Module 6: Evaluating Information Critically

Learning Outcomes:

1. Determine the intended audience for a piece of information.
2. Determine the author’s intended purpose of publishing the information.
3. Determine the accuracy of the information.
4. Determine the authority of the author, publisher or sponsor.
5. Determine the objectivity of the content.
6. Determine the currency of the information.
7. Determine the coverage or scope of the information.

Module 7: Using the Internet for Research

Learning Outcomes:

1. Determine the intended audience for a piece of information.
2. Determine the author’s intended purpose of publishing the information.
3. Determine the accuracy of the information.
4. Determine the authority of the author, publisher or sponsor.
5. Determine the objectivity of the content.
6. Determine the currency of the information.
7. Determine the coverage or scope of the information.