Hi folks. I am David Isaak and I am the Reed
librarian for Linguistics. Today we are going
to talk about finding a topic for your project
and literature searching.
To do this, we are
going
to use resources listed in the Linguistics
Research guide.
To find the guide from the Library homepage,
scroll down and click on Research Guides,
then choose Linguistics.
When choosing a topic, I would start with
some background sources before looking for journal articles.
Background sources will
give you a good overview of a linguistic
phenomenon including research questions that
have already been asked and what are some
of the major ideas in the field.
Let’s look at an example using the Encyclopedia
of Language and Linguistics.
A search on ‘Nuclear Stress Rule’ shows us an article
on a slightly broader topic: Phrasal Stress.
In addition to reading the overview itself, check
out the bibliography to find sources
to help you locate other authoritative works.
The CrossRef and Google Scholar links may
work to get you the full text depending on
the library’s subscriptions. If that doesn’t
work you should look up the reference directly
in the library catalog, searching on the journal
or book title.
Another great place to start are review articles.
A review article is a comprehensive overview
of
scholarship on a particular topic.
You can find four review publications on the Literature Search page.
When you have an idea for a topic and are
ready to look for peer-reviewed journal articles,
search in linguistics databases directly,
not just in Google Scholar.
Linguistics databases are listed on the literature search page. In the
databases, start you search using keywords
and
then review the results to find new keywords,
subject terms, and author names.
A lot of linguistics resources and resources are published in book form.
To find these, search the library Catalog.
Use the Reed+Summit scope to search
our collection and other academic libraries in the region.
Similar to searching for journal articles.
You can start with keywords, but make sure
to review the library catalog record to find
subject headings that can lead to a more precise search.
If you don’t find results in our catalog,
you can try searching WorldCat, which is a
world wide library catalog, to find books
for which you can then make
an interlibrary loan request.
As you investigate a topic, you may start
to see the same names of scholars over and over again.
Search databases for these author’s names.
You can also do an advanced Google search when you put in the name of the researcher
and limit the domain to an .edu site to find their researcher webpage.
I wanted to end with a few general tips. Remember
this is an iterative process. You will
rarely find a topic or all the relevant sources
during the first search.
Keep notes on your search terms and ideas.
As you read through
material, new search ideas will come up , but
they may be hard to remember later.
Finally, make sure to start with broad search terms
and then narrow your results. Don’t start
with a very narrow search.
I am happy to meet one-on-one about your project.
You can find ways to contact me in the
Linguistics research guide.
Thanks and good luck.
