Research Strategies

The basics.

Research has everything to do with solving problems, grappling with issues, advancing knowledge.

Research has everything to do with solving problems, grappling with issues, advancing knowledge. Research has nothing much to do with reproducing what you already know.

Why Do Many Research Papers Miss the Target? A research paper needs to answer a question The only data thats important is the data used to answer the question Merely summarizing what you have read is a failed research paper

EXAMPLE: Instead of investigating the events of the resurrection of Jesus (which mainly means culling the causes out of existing literature and reporting what you found), try this: How strong is the evidence presented within the Gospels that Jesus actually rose from the dead? That is, existing information on the topic becomes a tool to enable you to provide a solution to a problem. Thus research moves from an information gathering exercise (information as goal) to a problem-solving exercise (information as tool).

Lets look at some examples of questions that should illustrate how important they are.

Whats happening today in the debate about eternal punishment in Hell? Is this a good question for research?

Whats happening today debate about eternal punishment in Hell? Bad question: It gives you a topic, but you are merely tasked with gathering information, and there are many possible things that could be happening with this debate.

Lets try a more focused research question: What level of support is there in Scripture for arguing that there is no eternal punishment in Hell?

Now you have a scope within which to search An evaluation of this theological position as tested by the Bible

If you think of a research question as an arrow, there are several types that dont work well: The arrow that does not exist:

No question at all

If you think of a research question as an arrow, there are several types that dont work well: The Blunt Arrow:

What are the various views in the argument that Hell does not involve eternal punishment?

If you think of a research question as an arrow, there are several types that dont work well: The Multi-pointed Arrow:

What is Annihilationism, and who holds this position, and where did it come from, and why do some theologians not like it?

If you think of a research question as an arrow, there are several types that dont work well: The Simply Fuzzy Arrow:

What do we do with Annihilationism?

(Unclear who we are. Can we actually do something with Annihilationism, like banning it? Not clear what the goal of the question is.)

If you think of a research question as an arrow, there are several types that dont work well: The Never-Will-Fly Arrow:

How has Annihilationism affected evangelism today?

(Is there actually any effect? How would you measure it?)

If you think of a research question as an arrow, there are several types that dont work well: The Arrow Thats Already There:

Is Annihilationism controversial among Evangelicals?

Always think through your question so that its well focused and shows good promise of making a contribution: e.g. Are the problems of urban homelessness best answered through government programs or private charitable institutions?

How strong is the evidence that Jesus really rose from the dead? Why did Martin Luthers view of Jewish people grow more negative as he aged?
These types of questions are focused and give you good guidance for the type of information you need.

Searching for Resources

Types of Searches you Can Perform - Keyword - Controlled Vocabulary

Keywords

Lets Start with Keyword Searching - Computers allow you to search for words. - Databases (collections of information organized for retrieval) are made up of words. - Thus keyword searching is a great method for computer databases.

Keywords

Google is a strong medium for keyword searching

Keywords

The big problem with Google is that it searches entire websites. It cant search on authors of websites. It cant search just on major ideas in websites. It will bring you lots of results that are not really what youre looking for.

Keywords

Libraries have a special way to deal with some of these problems - Instead of just searching the full text of everything, libraries create descriptive records of the books and articles that you are searching for.

Here is a database record

Here are some of the keyword search options in the TWU book catalog:

Title Keyword searches for words in titles and contents notes. Author Keyword searches for part of an authors name (e.g. Badke) without needing the full name. Keywords search for words in titles, authors, subjects, etc. all at once Subject Keyword searches for part of a subject heading, even if you dont know a full subject heading in the right form. For example, the subject heading for commentaries on Mark is: Bible. N.T. MarkCommentaries. With a Subject Keyword search, I can just type: Mark Commentaries.

Keyword Searching follows specific rules that need to be understood.

The basis of keyword searching is the use of Boolean operators, the words OR, AND, and NOT.

The OR Command:

This command works for synonyms or related words. It tells the computer to find either term. Large number of results are located

The AND Command:

This command limits you results only to those records that have both words in them. The result set is smaller.

Most Internet search engines automatically create an AND. So do most library catalog keyword searches.

The NOT Command:

This command excludes words that you dont want in your results. E.g. you are searching for Covenant in the Bible but keep getting results referring to Covenant Churches where the Bible is taught. Thus search:
Covenant AND Bible NOT Church

Google includes all of these in its advanced search:

Lets try a library Title Keyword Search with OR:

Counseling or Psychotherapy

One title uses Counseling and one uses Psychotherapy

Now lets see what AND can do. The best situation for an AND search is when you want to narrow down to something quite specific. For example, if I want to find books about discipleship in the Gospel of Mark, subject headings may not help, since they are: Bible. N.T. Mark Christian Life Each term must be searched separately, so finding records where they overlap is a problem.

A Title Keyword search can do it (Note use of the truncation symbol $ for disciple, disciples, discipleship, discipling.)

Note the appearance of our words in the titles:

But be careful with Keywords:

- You have to use the right terminology. A computer cannot discern anything but the actual words you use. Even wrong spellings will mess up your results.
- You will likely need several alternate searches to cover all possible words related to a subject (This is where a controlled vocabulary search can be beneficial, because it doesnt depend on terminology in a title, etc.). - With AND searches, be careful not to use too many words. Every word you add to your search means you will have fewer results.

Some advanced keyword searches:

- On the Internet, you can search for phrases by putting them in quotation marks, e.g. apple trees - In library catalogs and other indexes, you may need to use brackets: (apple trees) If you dont group phrases the computer could bring up a result like this: Fruit Trees: Where Oranges and Apples Come From.

Some more advanced keyword searches:

When searches contain both ANDs and ORs, its best to group them so the computer knows what to do: (Counseling OR Psychotherapy) AND Phobias

You are telling the computer that you dont care if your results contain the word counseling or the word psychotherapy, but all results must contain the word phobias.

Controlled Vocabularies

Controlled Vocabulary Searching. What is it? Its a method of identifying information by pre-established subject headings.

Where do controlled vocabularies come from? They are produced by library catalogers who predetermine what subject headings to use and then apply them.

The most significant producer of a controlled vocabulary is The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Heres the easiest way to identify and use subject headings:

First do a keyword title search in the catalogue:

You can do the same thing with many journal indexes:

Journals

Journals are part of a class of resources generally known as periodicals. Periodicals are magazines, journals, etc. that are published at regular intervals under the same title.

E.g. Time Magazine The Province Newspaper Journal of Biblical Literature

Journals

Journals represent a particular problem since they continue being published, they are hard to catalog.

What most people want is a way to search by subject or keyword for specific articles in journals.

Journal Databases
Enter the Journal Database. A journal database provides subject or keyword searching to articles in a variety of journals. Often these databases are related to a subject area theology, psychology but some cover all subjects.

A strong feature in a number of journal databases is the presence of electronic full text, meaning that the whole text of the article is available through the database.

Journal Databases

Full text format is usually either html or PDF, most often the latter. HTML is usually just the text of the article, though sometimes any graphics are included.
PDF looks like a photocopy of the original article.

Journal Citations
This is what a journal citation may look like:

Database Access
Just a note about commercial journal databases:
Most of these databases are available to academic libraries only by expensive subscriptions. These libraries must protect access to their databases, limiting use only to their own students, or face lawsuits. Thus most journal databases are only available by password.

Alternative Databases

There are very few journal databases available on the Internet for free. Directory of Open Access Journals indexes journals that are available on the Net for free (less than 5000 of them currently). You can search by journal name or by topic http://www.doaj.org/ A resource for both articles and books is Google Scholar. Note that in many cases the articles that are cited do not come with full text, though you may be able to get an abstract. http://scholar.google.com/.

Here is a screen of the Journal Index EBSCO ATLA Religion Database, with basic search for relevant articles:

Now you have only 94 results, but they are much more focused on your topic:

Sometimes there is no electronic full text, but the library has it in another format. Click on the Check for availability link in the citation for the article

In this case, the library has electronic text in two places:

If you want a direct search to see if our library has a particular journal, search Journal Titles from the library home page. (www.twu.ca/library)

TWUs journal list looks like this: