Graduate Student Resources: Chester Fritz Library

The facets and key questions below are from the Researcher Skill Development Framework. Research is cyclical, and a librarian can help you navigate through this process. 

• Embark & Clarify 
  • Curious
  • What is our purpose?
• Find & Generate 
  • Determined
  • What do we need? 
• Evaluate & Reflect 
  • Discerning 
  • What do we trust?
• Organize & Manage 
  • Harmonizing 
  • What do we arrange? 
• Analyze & Synthesize 
  • Creative 
  • What does it mean?
• Communicate & Apply 
  • Constructive 
  • How do we relate?

The library provides a variety of materials, such as:

• books
• magazines
• newspapers
• theses/dissertations
• journals
• music
• government documents
• maps
• streaming video
• DVDs
• rare and special materials

The library generally does not have textbooks. Work with the subject librarians to find resources, course reserves and open educational resources. Also direct students to the Textbook Savvy guide.

NOTE: If you would normally show a DVD in class and are now teaching online, we can help.

Multidisciplinary Databases 

• Library "Everything" search 
• Google Scholar
• EBSCO Platform / Choose Databases Option 
• World Cat

Power Searching Strategies 

• * An asterisk will pick up variant endings of a word 
• " " Quotation marks around words select words next to one another 
• Use Boolean Operators "AND" (limiting) / "OR" (expanding) / "NOT" (excluding)

Field Searching - search for words only in the title, subjects, etc. to try to limit your results to more relevant articles 

Subject Searching - start with a thesaurus and add relevant terms to search 

Citation String

• Start with a relevant article or search for one and start there 
• Which articles did that article cite? Are they relevant to your research? 
• What articles did that article cite?

Pearl Growing - do a general search, look at what words relevant articles use, see which subject terms are helpful, and revise original search incorporating new information. 

Literature reviews are something you will find yourself doing during Graduate school. It's important to learn how to identify a literature review and how to write one. The library has a comprehensive guide on literature reviews.

• Want to know the different types of literature reviews? Click here.
• Want to find literature reviews? Click here.
• Need help with your literature review search? Click here. 

Citation Managers

There are many different ways to organize your references, but the easiest way is through a citation manager. Citation managers allow us to save, organize, and share articles and references. A few of the citation managers that the library promotes are Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote. EndNote is a subscription-based citation manager. Zotero and Mendeley are free to use. 

Citation Styles 

The library has created a citation styles guide for additional information on the different citation styles.