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Research Unbound: A Library Orientation for Transfer, Upper-Division, and Graduate Students

This micro-course, which involves a series of online modules, will help you learn about the University Libraries' resources available to you, and will equip you with the skills you need to be an effective researcher.

Assessing Search Results

Reading a Search Result Record (continued)

Consider the content explored on the previous page as we continue the discussion of reading search results--we'll come back to that content in just a moment.

Infographic describing how to "mine" records for additional information--check subject terms, use "more like this" feature, grab terms from abstract, title, bibliography, etc.

Let's put this into practice with the article example from the last page:

Library OneSearch result - How social media influence college students' smoking behavior and intentions, record information

The title, "How social media influence college students' smoking attitudes and intentions," is the first potential source for new or additional keywords that you could use in a more focused search. Instead of effects, you could use the term attitudes or intentions, which present specific kinds of effects or areas that social media could impact in college students

Looking past the title, you also see the creators listed, which are authors' names; these are linked and clickable -- you can investigate what else they have written, because thy may have written other research on this same topic.

Next, you come to the subject tags: social media, influence of presumed influence, smoking attitude, smoking intention, and college studentsObviously, you've already used "social media" and "college students," but if you find you're interested in smoking-related behaviors, or influence or presumed influence, these terms could be useful. as with the authors' names, these terms are clickable in the record, so by clicking on them with your mouse, you'll start a new search.

Lastly, there is the abstract, which is called the description here. This field offers a wealth of information and potential new keywords, as well as giving you a sense of what the article is really about. Reading the abstract can help you identify what you do, and don't, want to spend your time on, and it can also suggest additional search terms.