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RAMS 101: First Year Seminar, Cote

RAMS 101: First Year Seminar, Professor Cote

Where is the information coming from? 

When doing preliminary research, be critical of where the information is coming from. When doing research we think of our sources in two ways, primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are anything produced in the time period you are studying. Secondary Sources are about the time period you are studying. Secondary Sources can be broken into the categories of Scholarly and Popular. Scholarly sources are detailed analysis produced by scholars in a field. Peer-reviewed journals are scholarly sources.  Popular sources are produced for news and entertainment for the general public.  Examples of popular sources are newspapers (for example: The New York Times) or popular magazines (for example: Time magazine). 

Why use scholarly sources? 

Scholarly journal articles are vetted as they have gone through the process of peer-review. They generally go into greater detail about an event than a secondary source, and will have detailed citations leading you to the primary sources consulted. 

How do I find scholarly and popular articles? 

Scholarly articles can be found in the library databases. Periodical databases index articles in magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals. Ram Search searches almost all of our library databases. In Ram Search, to get scholarly journal articles use the "scholarly, peer-reviewed" limiter in the left-hand bar. 

Relevant Library Databases

EBSCO Search Box

Ram Search

Search for articles, books, journals, and more!

Advanced Search   |   About Ram Search

RAM Search searches almost all of Whittemore Library’s resources except for streaming video.

Creating an Effective Search

Boolean Operators and Wildcards

Boolean operators tell the database how to put your words together in a search. Wildcards allow you to search for a a word, or part of a word with any ending. Here are some examples: 

  • "fugitive slave act" AND massachusetts --> This search will combine the two search terms. The phrase "fugitive slave act" AND the word Massahcusetts
  • "fugitive slave act" AND (resistance OR opposition) --> This search will search for the phrase "fugitive slave act" AND the word resistance OR search the phrase "fugitive slave act" AND the word opposition
  • massachusetts AND slav* --> This search will search for the word massachusetts AND any word that begins with slav, like slave or slavery.

When you are starting to think of search terms think of synonyms! This will help you find everything on your topic. For example, if I'm interested in research on college campuses, I may want to include the words university OR higher education in my search. 

Keyword Searching vs. Subject Searching

Keyword searching is when you type a word or phrase into the database search bar and search the entire database record or a specific part of the database record for that keyword. 

Subject searching is limiting your search to the subject terms in the database record. 

Both are effective methods of searching, and can be used in combination.