1. Searching for Literature
by Miles Hamby, Ph.D.
August 21, 2008

2. Review of what others have found on your topic
The Literature Review
Review of what others have found on your topic
Benefits (from Leedy & Ormrod 2005)
Offer new ideas, persepctives, approaches or problems similar to yours
Identify other researchers
Describe other methodologies and measruement tools
Reveal sources of data
Reveal unique interpretations and conclusions
Support the worthiness of your own study

3. Searching for Literature
The toughest part ~ finding the keyword
Sources
Ebsco
Websites/Internet
Library card catalogues

4. Ebsco - Your primary source!
Ebsco-hosted Databases
Academic Search Premier – full text > 4,500 journals  
Business Source Premier - Most used business research database; > 2,300 journals; updated daily on EBSCOhost.  
Regional Business News business journals, newspapers and newswires from all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States.
ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center) - > 1,194,000 records and links to more than 100,000 full-text documents  
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) - > 690 periodicals, books, research reports and proceedings; back to mid-1960s.

5. Juried Sources EBSCOHost Britannica Online Mergent Online
Congressional Quarterly Suite
Loislaw
Oxford Reference Online
Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged)
Faulkner's Security Management Practices

6. Everything on the internet is true!
Websites
Everything on the internet is true!
It isn’t?

7. Internet Seach Engines
Google.com
Altavista.com
Askjeeves.com
Excite.com
Hotbot.com
Infoseek.com

8. How to use literature to validate or refute to illustrate to defend
Anything can be used as a reference – the crtiical thing is how it’s used!
to validate or refute
to illustrate
to defend
to compare and contrast

9. What makes a work ‘scholarly’?
To validate or refute -
Scholarly works!
What makes a work ‘scholarly’?
Source of publication – i.e., juried
Author’s name & credentials
List of references; in-text citations
Format – eg, classic 5 chapters

10. To validate or refute - Other Sources
Government and Public Service websites – certain pages, if identified as valid information
Private website – certain pages if identified as valid information

11. All other uses - News articles – usually anonymous
Entertainment media – eg, u-tube, movies, music
Fiction – novels, stories
Non-juried sources - eg, Wikipedia
Blogs & Personal Websites
Organizational Websites

12. Whatever you use -
Document it!

13. Searching for Literature