Course Number: GG700-800
Subject: Geography and Environmental Studies
To book a research consultation
Use my Appointment booking calendar
Who to contact at University of Waterloo
- Marian Davies, Geography and Environmental Management Librarian
- UW Library Research contact form for Marian Davies
Pre-workshop tutorials on advanced library research techniques
Tutorial 1: Developing a research question--for graduate students
Tutorial 2: Choosing good keywords and subject terms for your searches
Link referred to in above video: The Thesis Whisperer: How to become a literature searching ninja
Tutorial 3: Planning a literature review
Tutorial 4: Choosing databases to search
Tutorial 5: Creating and running complex searches
Tutorial 6: Multi-database search examples
Tutorial 7: Managing your information
Important notes about OMNI
- Use Omni primarily for books
- Omni IS case sensitive = use AND, OR, NOT to connect your search terms
- You can "virtually browse" the shelves using the Virtual Browse link on an individual title
One database every graduate student should know: Dissertations & Theses
- This is a database of Doctoral dissertations and Master's theses
- Laurier access - see the Theses and Dissertations page - look for the 1st link to the ProQuest database
- U. Waterloo access - see the Dissertations and Theses page - it's the 1st result listed
- Every dissertation should have a literature review section
- A thesis will often provide a more comprehensive "review" of the literature
Reading research articles
- How to read a scientific paper. From Elsevier.
- How to read and understand a scientific article. From University Affairs.
- How to read a scientific article. From Rice University
Services for Graduate Students
- Click relevant links below for more information on additional Research Workshops, information on the Joint Programme, Graduate Commons Study Space, and more.
- Services for graduate students from the Laurier Library
- Services for graduate students from the UW Library
- List of Ontario University Libraries
- Note: University of Toronto has limits on who may use materials; External researchers (Grad Students, Faculty, or staff from other Canadian Universities) must purchase a Direct Borrower card
Supplementary material
First steps: research question and literature review
- Planning a literature review: video (5:10) with tips on searching, analysing, and organizing sources for your literature review
- Generating research questions and keywords:
- How to become a literature searching ninja (the Thesis Whisperer)
- Developing a research question: for graduate students (a short, general video)
- Healey, M. and Healey, R. L. (2015). "How to conduct a literature review," in Clifford, N.J. et al. (eds). (2015). Key methods in geography. London: SAGE Publications. (short chapter (6.4.4), available in Google Books)
- White, P. (2009). Developing research questions : A guide for social scientists. Basingstoke [England] ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
The Library System
- Omni: use to access print books and e-books; individual journals; best for scholarly books
- 3 search scopes available: 1) Laurier Libraries; 2) Laurier+Waterloo+Guelph Libraries; 3) Laurier+Omni Libraries
- Details on delivery times available here
- Databases: access to the greater “information ecosystem"; best to use for peer-reviewed articles
- UW Special Collections & Archives/WLU Archives: for local “restricted” collections
- Interlibrary Loan (RACER): to request wide print materials outside Omni libraries; use for both books and journal articles
- NOTE: Some of these services are limited our unavailable due to Covid-19 pandemic
Create a "controlled vocabulary"
- AKA: Index, Thesaurus, list of Keywords, Subject Headings
- You need to identify centrally important concepts in your research area and create fixed definitions for them (Abbott, 2014)
- Assists you in searching, categorizing, analysis and write-up
- Especially important when doing systematic reviews or being careful in replicating research
GG700/800 YouTube Video Tutorials (with contents)
Online Graduate Library Research Workshop: Introduction
2:30 How to contact
4:05 UW Geography Librarian contact information
Part 1.2: Academic Information Ecosystem
Part 2.1: From Research Question to Search Strategy
0:10 Topics
0:36 Research questions
1:05 Generating research questions and keywords
2:42 Research question example: mapping
6:53 Creating a research thesaurus/controlled vocabulary
10:04 How to create?
Part 2.2: Research Database demo
0:03 controlled vocabulary search in ProQuest
2:33 controlled vocabulary results in Web of Science
Part 2.3 Creating a Controlled Vocabulary and Search Strategy
0:00 Intro
0:36 Thinking about concepts
2:08 Search example
2:15 Creating a search strategy
2:19 Purpose of a search strategy
3:42 Steps in creating a search strategy
5:27 Example
7:43 Documenting your research
Part 3.1: The Mechanics of Search
0:00 Introduction
1:05 Important caveat!
3:18 Boolean operators
6:19 Phrase searching
7:10 Wildcards and truncation
9:09 Keywords vs. Subject Headings
10:29 Limiters
Part 3.2: The Mechanics of Search, Examples
0:06 Geobase
5:10 Web of Science
6:14 Omni outlier
7:20 Help in databases
Part 4.1: Managing your Information, Saving searches to a database
0:24 Assumptions
0:47 Topics
1:54 Saving searches to a database
2:06 Saving searches in ProQuest
4:43 Saving searches in Geobase
5:10 Saving results in Web of Science
Part 4.2: Managing your Information, saving references to a database
0:19 Saving references in ProQuest
1:57 Saving records in Web of Science
Part 4.3: Managing your Information, saving references to a reference manager
0:05 Intro
0:42 Downloading records from Geobase
1:55 Saving records to Mendeley Reference Manager
5:29 Saving records to Zotero
8:10 Working with pdfs in Mendeley
10:35 Working with pdfs in Zotero
Part 4.4: Managing your Information, managing info with a reference manager
0:11 Managing information in Zotero
0:48 Removing duplicates in Zotero
2:06 Creating a bibliography in Zotero
3:31 Mendeley update
4:20 WLU Online workshops
Constructing a search string
Most databases:
- Use connectors (Boolean operators) to combine terms Watch our video Better Searching using AND, OR NOT
- AND = use between search terms to retrieve ALL the words in each record
- OR = use to search related terms/synonyms on the same topic
- NOT = excludes words or phrases, but should be used judiciously
- " " = phrase search, exact words in a particular order
- * = truncation, searches for different forms of a word (variant spellings)
- ? = wildcard, searches for variant spellings of one letter, e.g. colo?r searches for color, colour
- Most databases have good "Help" resources on Boolean/Advanced searching; good to check these out before you start; they have advance features not discussed in detail in class
How to tell if a journal is scholarly/peer-reviewed/refereed?
- Many databases, e.g. ProQuest; EBSCO, allow limit to peer-reviewed articles by check box
- Other databases, e.g. Web of Science, Scopus, Geobase, do not have peer-reviewed check box limiter
- In this case, you should limit results to "Articles" on the left side menu; this usually removes non-peer-reviewed materials such as conference proceedings, chapters, book reviews, opinion articles, and letters to the editor
- If in doubt whether an article is from a peer-reviewed journal
- Use Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory - do a title search and look for the "referee" symbol
- Visit the web site of the journal, check their "About" section to determine if it is peer-reviewed, and what the process is
- For a definition and discussion of "predatory journals" see Grudniewicz, A., Moher, D., Cobey, K. D., Bryson, G. L., Cukier, S., Allen, K., ... & Lalu, M. M. (2019). Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Nature 576, 210-212. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03759-y
Citation Metrics/Impact of Research
- Journal Impact Factor: from InCites Journal Citation Reports, through Web of Science
- Eigenfactor: alternate metric showing "article's importance to the scientific community" from Eigenfactor.org
- SciMago Journal and Country rank: publicly available portal showing journals and country scientific indicators developed from information in the Scopus database
Managing Citations
Further Reading
Faculty/Librarian recommendations:
Graduate School in General
- Haggerty, K., & Doyle, A. (2015). 57 ways to screw up in grad school : perverse professional lessons for graduate students. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Berdahl, L., & Malloy, J. (2018). Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD. University of Toronto Press.
- Heard, S. (2016). The Scientist’s Guide to Writing : How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career. Princeton University Press.
Graduate Theses Manuals
Parsons, T. and Knight, PG. (2015). How To Do Your Dissertation in Geography and Related Disciplines. Routledge.
- Intended for Undergraduates but still has good information for all stages of writing a dissertation.
- ebook - UW Copy
- ebook - WLU Copy
Dollinger, M. (2019). Getting the Most Out of Your Doctorate. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.
Blair, L. (2016). Writing a Graduate Thesis or Dissertation. Boston : Brill.
Oliver, P. (2014). Writing your thesis. (Third edition.). SAGE.
- Contains a chapter on writing a literature review
- ebook - WLU Copy
- print - UW copy
Biggam, J. (2015). Succeeding with your master's dissertation : a step-by-step handbook. Berkshire, England : Open University Press
Geography/Environmental Studies Research Manuals
- These deal more with non-library related components of the research process.
Clifford, N.J. et al. (eds.). 2015. Key methods in geography. London: SAGE Publications. (multiple editions available)
Gomez, B. and J. P. Jones. (eds.). 2010. Research methods in geography : a critical introduction. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hay, I. 2016. Qualitative research methods in human geography (Fourth ed.). Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.
Kanazawa, M. 2018. Research methods for environmental studies : A social science approach. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge.
Montello, D. R. and P. C. Sutton (eds.). (2013). An introduction to scientific research methods in geography and environmental studies. 2nd ed. London: SAGE Publications.
Northey, M., Draper, D., & Knight, D. B. (2015). Making sense : a student’s guide to research and writing : geography and environmental sciences (Sixth edition.). Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press. Link to Laurier copy and other copies in Omni
General Library Research Manuals
Abbott, A. (2014). Digital paper : a manual for research and writing with library and internet materials. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Abbott is an expert Sociologist and provides a great narrative (Ch. 2, A Library Ethnography) of what detailed library work consists of.
Mann, T. (2015). The Oxford guide to library research. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
- A comprehensive look into the entire gamut of library research; covers database searching at the intermediate to expert level.
Indigenous Research
Indigenous Research Guide: Developed at UW "jointly by Indigenous students from the Graduate Students Association, the Office of Research, and the Library..." The guide "is intended to identify Indigenous-related resources that have been marginalized, erased, and ignored because of dominant Western practices in education, scholarship, and library science."