CI 3338: Social Studies in the Elementary and Middle School

Database Searching Basics:

• Use keywords not sentences
• Only search for 2-3 concepts 
• Include alternative terms for your concepts
  • example: spanish flu or influenza
• Use Database search commands:

• AND (searches for all terms)
• OR (searches for either term)
• NOT (excludes term from results)

• Phrase Searching (search for whole phrases)
• Truncation (The symbol used is usually *)

  Example: COUNSEL* will retrieve: counseling, counsel, counselors, counselor, counselled, etc. 

Some suggestions for finding search terms:

• Review the assignment from Dr. Brooks and note the terms used:
  • Covid 19 or pandemic AND society impact
  • migration patterns AND water scarcity

• Do separate searches for History, Geography, and Economic topics.

• Consider synonyms or alternate concepts for your main search terms:
  • Alternate or synonymous terms:
    • (Covid-19 or Covid or pandemic or Coronavirus)
  • Using a broader term for your concept:
    • pandemic
  • Using a narrower term for your concept:
    • Covid-19
    • Spanish flu

• Review the subject terms in articles:
  1. Identify an article that is useful
  2. Click on the article title
  3. Scroll down to the Subject terms
  4. Consider adding any helpful subject terms to your search string

What is the difference between searching Start Your Research versus a subject Database?

• Start Your Research
  • Searches just about everything the library owns.
    • Books, eBooks, Subject Database (medical, literature, social science etc...), Streaming Video, etc...
  • SYR is great when you aren't sure which databases to search.
• Databases
  • Searches fewer resources such as journals, magazines, and newspapers in a specific discipline like Nursing.
  • Searching a specific database is great if you need a specific type of resource like an article from an academic journal in a specific field of study.

Search the website of the organization (UN, IMF, CDC etc...) for reports. When searching websites of organizations, a strategy is to do a very broad topic search using search terms such as:

• Water crisis
• Human migration
• Pandemic
• Disease

You can also search Google Scholar for reports by an agency then search the Catalog for the report:

1. Go to Google Scholar and do an Advanced Search:

2. Find a report listed in the results from Google Scholar:

3. Go to the Library Catalog and search for the title of the report:

Suggestions for searching for news articles:

• Use keyword searching and the search commands AND, OR, NOT
• Search for specific events or people 
• Narrow the publication dates to the time period of the event

Options for searching Atlases or eBooks:

• Review the table of contents.
• Use the search feature within the book to search for your topic.
• Look up your topic in the index.

Finding lesson plans:

1. Go to Google Advanced Search.
2. Suggested search terms:
   • lesson plans
   • social studies
   • middle school
3. Suggested limiter:
   • domain: .edu