How Do I Get Started? Creating a search strategy: Module for first year undergraduates

Who are You? First Year undergraduates at Emerson College taking a required interdisciplinary research and writing course. Course title: “Staging American Women: The Culture of Burlesque”. Image used under CC license from Moggs Oceanlane /in/photostream/

Overall Program To improve the research, information use, and citation skills of first year students in their immediate work. Introduce and acclimate first year students to the library and its resources to instill research and investigation practices for lifelong learning.

The Modules 1.How to formulate a research question, break it down, and begin the search. 2.How to find books and reference materials on a topic and read call numbers in the library. 3.Tips and tricks of database and OPAC searching. 4.How to evaluate the validity and usefulness of (online and database) information. 5.Appropriate use of information and sources. 6.Questions and review.

Learning Outcomes: Module One Break down a research question into key words and synonyms for searching. Become familiar with research topic vocabulary by searching online reference resources. Choose discipline-appropriate databases and online resources and use our keywords and topic vocabulary to search them. Use the thesaurus and other tools to find subject terms used by an online database.

On with the show! Image used under CC license from daskerst,

Strategize! When starting your research, you want to form a question to answer and break it down into searchable pieces. We might think of these terms as keywords or key topics. It helps to think of synonyms, both broad and specific; this will help you broaden and narrow your search later.

First step: Breaking down a question What were the similarities and differences between burlesque performances in the United States and Great Britain in the 1800s? Image used under CC licence from /

Next step: Know your subject! Sometimes knowing more about your topic can help you with your search. Reference books in the reference section (we’ll talk about that next time). Online reference resources: Wikipedia and Credo Reference. Wikipedia, really? Yes, but remember: ONLY use these as a jumping off point!

Wikipedia Let’s search the term “Burlesque”. What do we find? –General information on the history of Burlesque. –Important figures and performers in Burlesque. –List of books, articles, Websites about Burlesque. All of these things can help you to form a question in the first place, refine your original question, or simply broaden your search. REMEMBER: Don’t use Wikipedia as a source in your final bibliography. Think of it as a helper to guide you to better sources. Image from

Credo Reference Similar to Wikipedia, but much broader in scope: includes entries from several kinds of professionally created dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. Let’s search “Burlesque”. It can give us the same type of information as Wikipedia, but it can give us MORE of it from many sources. Available on Library Webpage, Databases A-Z Image from

Keyword Brainstorm Chart

Ta Da! The End Librarian: Lisa Molinelli, Image from George Eastman House

Assessment Non-graded pretest given to students before library instruction begins to assess what they already know about library resources and search process. After each session, non-graded quiz posted on class’ online class space to be completed for credit before next session. Students’ “final paper” bibliographies will be graded by the library instructor as well as the professor.