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Beyond the Classroom

Course Number: RE407

Accessing resources
Source types

Journal articles

Hankivsky, O., Grace, D., Hunting, G., Giesbrecht, M., Fridkin, A., Rudrum, S., Ferlatte, O., & Clark, N. (2014). An intersectionality-based policy analysis framework: critical reflections on a methodology for advancing equity. International Journal for Equity in Health, 13(1), 119-135. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-014-0119-x

Books

Book chapters

Bishop, S. (2024). The Voices of Hope: A Traveling Miracle. In The Oxford Handbook of Community Singing. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197612460.013.31

Conference proceedings

Ma, L. lEller, Dickson-Deane, C., Raffe, W., Murphy, A. R., & Garcia, J. (2024). Gaming for Equity: The Power of Diversity within Gender and Race in Gamers. 2024 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645628

Reference sources

Mansager, E. (2022). Spirituality. In: Glăveanu, V.P. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Magazine articles

Addario, Lynsey, and Leila Fadel. Being Muslim in America. National Geographic Magazine. Vol. 233. Washington: National Geographic Partners, 2018.

Newspaper articles

Hogben, Alia. "The Mixing of Religion and Politics can Become Problematic." Kingston Whig - Standard, A7. Sep 23, 2023.

Letters to the editor

Letter to the editor. "Religion Shouldn't be Forced on Students." Nanaimo News Bulletin, Dec 12, 2019.

Editorials

Milloy, John. "Religion can Help Bring Us Together." Waterloo Region Record, A9. May 03, 2023.

Dissertations or theses

Fong, A. L. (2023). Female gamers’ perceptions of their mental health influenced by the online gaming space (Publication No. 30810740) [Doctoral Dissertation], University of Lethbridge. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Primary sources

Abdel Haleem, M. A., trans. The Qurʼan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Videos

Harmoni: Healing Together. London, England: Royal Anthropological Institute, 2021.

Grey literature

Black, V. (2024). AI Job Displacement: Perspectives on the Future of Work From Beneath the Silicon Ceiling. Somatmosphere. https://somatosphere.net/ai-job-displacement-perspectives-on-the-future-of-work-from-beneath-the-silicon-ceiling

Immigration Partnership of Waterloo Region (2021). Waterloo Region Immigrant Survey Summary Report. https://www.immigrationwaterlooregion.ca/en/business-opportunities/resources/Resources--Publications/2021-Immigrant-Survey-Summary-Report.pdf

Evaluating sources

Open access journals

  • Open Access is free online availability and usage right of research articles
  • Open Access publishing typically involves the author paying an article processing charge (APC)
  • APC's can be built into grant applications
  • See the Library's Scholarly Communication page for more information

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+)

How do I know if a journal is reputable?

What is a library database?

A library database is an online searchable collection of information, often in the form of references to articles, books, and book chapters (but also newspaper articles, thesis, music, etc). Consider how the author of this thesis utilizes databases and search techniques, as described on pages 35-38.

Dissertation

Al-Hamad, A. (2021). Syrian refugee women's experiences with the ontario health care system: A critical ethnography study (Order No. 30510215). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2838333990). (see pp. 35-38)

Database searching tips
  1. 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.
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.

health care OR medical care

Phrase searching

Use quotation marks to find more than one term in a row.

“health care

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 (not available in Omni)

Use NEAR/n to search for terms within n words of each other (sometimes Nn)

"health care" NEAR/5 (child* OR adolescent*)

Tutorial: Better searching using AND, OR, NOT 

  1. Employ search limiters (available limiters depend on the database)
    • peer reviewed, article type, date
    • e.g, in APA PsycInfo, can include: age group, population group, methodology
  2. Identify key publications and authors
    • note citations, and cited references, repeated author names
  3. Document and track everything you do in the steps above
Omni (books and articles)

Omni is the search tool for the Laurier Library’s print and other collections and a subset of our electronic resources. It also contains the print and circulating collections of 18 other Ontario university libraries, which can be requested by Laurier community members for delivery.

In general, after you search Omni, you can use the facets on the left to filter your results. Some common filters include:

  • Books and eBooks
  • Articles
  • Peer-reviewed journals
  • Publication date
Follow citation trail in Omni
  • Up arrows find sources citing this item
  • Down arrows find sources cited in this item

Omni citation trail options

eBooks

Most the Library's eBooks are catalogued in Omni. However an Omni search will only retrieve eBooks if your search words are in the catalogue record (author, title, subject, abstract, etc.), and NOT the full text. It can sometimes be helpful to search the full text of an eBook collection, particular for more obscure topics. The Library subscribes to eBooks through a large number of eBook collections, so you cannot search all our eBooks at once. However the following two sources are good places to start:

Subject databases

Omni is a large index, but it does not contain everything, so it is important to duplicate your searches across other subject databases. There is no such thing as a typical CAST topic, with much of your research likely to be of an interdisciplinary nature. Here are some examples of databases you could search. Note: if you alreadyknow the title of an article, you can search for it in Omni (tutorial: Finding an article when you only know the title)

APA PsycInfo®

A comprehensive database for the field of psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines.

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. They often contain extensive bibliographies.

News articles

The Library subscribes to a wide variety of Canadian, US, and international news sources, both current and archival. More information.

Grey literature

Grey literature is information produced outside traditional scholarly publications. It includes reports, policy briefs and reports, major research papers, white papers, working papers, government documents, speeches, etc. 

There is no single database that covers grey literature well, so Google is helpful in cases like this. Consider the following tips when searching Google, often using these in combination:

 Below are some links to some possible sources of grey literature.

Available through Laurier Library

PAIS Index

International index to various types of publications on public/social policy and social sciences. Includes PAIS Archive.

Available online

Page Owner: Greg Sennema

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