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ECON 460: Research Methods (Svec) Spring 2025: Getting Started Searching

Is it Scholarly?

A scholarly or peer-reviewed article has been written by an expert in the subject (ex., a professor or other researcher), and has been reviewed and approved by a group of other experts (their peers). 

You can see an interactive diagram of a scholarly article, designed by the NC State Libraries, here.

Some tips for identifying scholarly articles:

  • Most scholarly articles are published in academic journals or edited collections. Articles from magazines, trade journals, or newspapers are not scholarly. 
  • Scholarly articles will always include citations and a bibliography. Other articles generally include few or no citations, and will include only a brief bibliography or notes section if any at all. 
  • Not all resources with citations are scholarly (for example, Wikipedia is not). 
    If you're not sure about a source, check for information like: the author's name/credentials; the publication it appears in or the publisher;  or the intended audience. 
  • Book reviews and editorials are never scholarly, even when published in scholarly journals. 

Research Strategies

General Research Strategies:

 

line drawing of a tape measure Be realistic about the size of the topic that you can tackle. Consider the limitations of your timeline and available materials. It's better to address a focused topic well than to address a broader topic poorly because you are trying to cover too much material.

 

Begin your research early. Well-done research is an iterative process; leave yourself time for this process to occur! This has the added benefit of extending your resources to excellent sources outside of Holy Cross Libraries through Interlibrary Loan!

 

 Be efficient. Use the strategies we will discuss (such as: choosing appropriate and multiple research tools; making use of advanced search features; thoughtful choice of keywords; following your sources) to conduct your research in a targeted, effective and efficient manner. 

 

Critically Examine your sources. Examine the context of those sources (i.e., the scholarly conversation they participate in) and allow that context to lead you to other sources. For example: what else has this author written? What other useful sources are referenced? What other sub-conversations might I want to participate in? 

 

Ask for help as needed. Research librarians are available to assist you -- it's literally our job! Sometimes this may mean making a research appointment; other times, a quick e-mail conversation will suffice. 

Identifying Search Terms:

Here are some general tips to guide you in choosing your search terms:

- Use keywords or brief (2-word) phrases instead of sentences -- one or two for each part of your topic.

- Use concepts and other nouns as your keywords.  Think of words that are likely to be used in titles (or that you have seen in titles).

- If your keywords aren't turning up many results, you may need to:

  • Try thinking of synonyms or other ways of phrasing your topic. If you can find one or two relevant articles, check to see what subjects are listed for them and try to build keywords from there. 
     
  • Try a broader search (broader topic, broader date-range, etc.).
     
  • Try a different database.

You can use the worksheet below to help jumpstart your keyword searching: 

In most cases, you will locate journal articles for your research by using tools called research databases -- large, electronic collections of references for articles of many different types and on many different topics, put in one place where you can search the whole collection. 

Unlike Google, which reads every word in every page of every document from beginning to end, the library catalog, and some of our research databases, can usually only see basic information about articles or books -- the titles, summaries, and maybe some subject keywords. This is why searching for sentences or entire phrases works in Google but not in the library resources. 

CrossSearch

Start your research using the library's Cross Search tool.  This will conduct a high-level search across all of the databases, journals, books, periodicals, audio, video, and other resources.  Use advanced search features & filters to narrow down your searches.

 

Subject-Specific Databases: Economics & Accounting

Expanding on Existing Research

Expanding on Existing Research:

No piece of research stands alone; each is part of a broader scholarly conversation in that topic/ field. You can use a single article  or other resource to find other, similar research by tracing the paths of that conversation:

Keywords – Check the abstract, subject terms and full-text to discover the vocabulary being used in this particular scholarly conversation.

Subject Terms – Subject terms not only provide insight into vocabulary you should use but also serve as search tools – click on these tags in any database (or the catalog) to find more resources on a given topic.

Cited References – Check the references list (or bibliography) to see what previous research this resource is drawing on. From here, you may wish to consider: 

- Previous articles or books published on your topic
- Other authors who have published on your topic
- Journals where your topic is frequently discussed

Times Cited – Check Google Scholar to see which articles or books have cited your sources, and to find
more-recent research which builds on your original information.


** Once you find a new resource, you can also trace the scholarly conversation around that book/article to find even more resources! **

For a simpler, graphic representation of this research strategy, download the handout below: 

Recommended Tools: