One of the things I’ve always struggled with when preparing to write a research paper is finding sources that are precisely tailored to what I need. The range of topics a research paper might cover is vast and the number of questions one might pose is infinite, and so I’m certain that there is potential for someone to not find any relevant sources at all. But in most cases, it’s more than likely that that perfect source exists. You just have to know how to find it.
Before this semester, my go-to method for finding sources was to chose a key word or phrase and plug it in to an appropriate data base. I’d never heard of advanced searching, and in retrospect producing searches with enough relevant sources to sustain a full paper felt a lot like using a knitting needle for fine embroidery. The one thing I was doing right was finding specific databases; if I were to teach someone how to perform a good search I would have to say this is probably the second most important thing to finding the advanced search feature. Other than that, I would say the most interesting thing I learned in this module is that you can search subject headings instead of keywords, as discussed in the “Related and Alternative Terms” section of the reading.