Advanced Research
Course Number: MU701
Subject: Music Therapy, Music: Community Music
Models of Research
Kovaleski, M. K. (2021). The feasibility of a music listening intervention on the incidence, severity, and duration of delirium in the older acute care patient: A feasibility trial (Publication No. 28414859) [Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
- See pg. 6 for literature search
- see page 23 for search strategies
Lee, J. (2015). The effects of music on pain: A review of systematic reviews and meta-analysis (Publication No. 3703017) [Doctoral dissertation, Temple University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
- see page 61 for literature search
- see page 302 for search strategies
Database searching tips
- Tutorial: Developing a research question: for graduate students
- Consider word variations and synonyms
- think about how others might refer to your ideas
- e.g., child death, perinatal death, neonatal death, stillbirth, sudden infant death, etc.
- Consider search tactics
What is the tactic? | What does the tactic do? | Examples |
---|---|---|
Boolean AND | Use AND to ensure that all terms appear in every search result. | depression AND home care |
Boolean OR | Use OR to ensure that at least one term appears in every search result. | auditory OR acoustic OR sound |
Phrase searching | Use “quotation marks” to find more than one term in a row. | “vibroacoustic therapy” |
Truncation | Use an asterisk* at the end of a term to include multiple endings. (sometimes $) | trauma* trauma, traumatic, traumatically, traumatize, traumatized, traumatizing |
Wildcard | Use a question mark ? within a term to search for variations of a single character. | decoloni?e decolonize, decolonise |
Proximity | Use NEAR/n to search for terms within n words of each other (sometimes ADJ/n) | "music therapy" NEAR/5 child* OR adolescent* |
Tutorial: Better searching using AND, OR, NOT
- Employ search limiters (available limiters depend on the database)
- peer reviewed, article type, date
- e.g, in PsycInfo, can include: age group, population group, methodology
- Identify key publications and authors
- note citations, and cited references, repeated author names
- Document and track everything you do in the steps above
Articles
Tutorial: Finding scholarly articles on a topic
Search in Omni
- limit to "Articles" and "Peer-reviewed journals"
- article content in Omni is not chosen or curated, but dumped in, i.e, it may not have everything on a particular topic.
Researchers rely on curated collections of content according to discipline
- RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (academic, international in scope)
- Music Periodicals Database (more popular content, e.g, Billboard)
- CINAHL (nursing and allied health)
- PsycINFO (psychotherapy, counseling)
- Pubmed (health-related content)
- Cochrane Library (Evidence-based trials) (Edwards, 2016, p. 732)
- e.g, Music therapy for people with autism spectrum disorder
- What are Systematic Reviews (Cochrane YouTube)
Other interdisciplinary subject databases that may be helpful depending on your topic
- ERIC (education)
- SPORTDiscus (kinesiology)
- MEDLINE (medical)
- Sociology Collection
- Web of Science
Other considerations
- You can "hand-search" journal publications
- Identify non-scholarly (popular) music articles using the Music Periodicals Database
- There are other subject-based databases that might be relevant to your search area, such as Education or Sociology
- If you already know the title of an article, you can search for it in Omni
Books and ebooks
Tutorial: Finding books in Omni
Tutorial: Requesting books from other libraries in Omni
- Start with known titles
- Hendricks, K. S. (Ed.). (2023). The Oxford Handbook of Care in Music Education. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197611654.001.0001
- Edwards, J. (2016). The Oxford handbook of music therapy. Oxford University Press. http://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199639755.001.0001
- Search with Omni
- limit to "Books and eBooks", e.g, Music Therapy"
- use call number (e.g. to find location of Laurier's print items)
- sign in to request from other Omni libraries
- use Scan on Demand for chapters or articles
- Tip: Search within ebook collections to search within the full text of eBooks (as opposed to searching titles in Omni)
- Ebook Central (Proquest)
- Academic Collection (ESBCO)
Predatory journals
Google and Google Scholar index anything, including predatory journals
Predatory journals are a global threat. They accept articles for publication — along with authors’ fees — without performing promised quality checks for issues such as plagiarism or ethical approval. (Grudniewicz, A., Moher, D., Cobey, K. D., Bryson, G. L., Cukier, S., Allen, K., & Ardern, C. (2019). Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Nature, 576(7786), 210+)
- Rising number of ‘predatory’ academic journals undermines research and public trust in scholarship (The Conversation, Sept. 19, 2023)
- Google News search for "predatory journals"
- International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health (example)
- Beall's list (wikipedia page)
- Think. Check. Submit.
If in doubt, confirm if a resource is indexed in a reputable database like Omni or subject-specific database, e.g., RILM.
Research methodologies
Grant, M., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x
- Use Sage Reference to learn about research methodologies, e.g, action research, grounded theory, or literature reviews, e.g.,
- Sage Handbook of Grounded Theory
- Sage Handbook of Ethnography
- Sage Handbook of Narrative Inquiry
- Sage Handbook of Performance Studies
- NOTE: Laurier does not own all Sage Handbooks online
Dissertations and Theses
Dissertations and theses may be considered scholarly sources since they are closely supervised by a dissertation committee made up of scholars, are directed at an academic audience, are extensively researched, follow research methodology, and are cited in other scholarly work.
However, dissertations are still considered student work and are not peer-reviewed. Always clarify with your instructor as to whether you can include and cite dissertations and theses in your research.
Managing your citations
- Chicago Manual of Style
- entire ebook available online
- APA
- The Laurier Library owns print copies of the APA Style Guide, but not the electronic version. Most information you will need to guide you for this class will be found on the APA Style guide website.