Example: (resilience OR grit) critique

• Indicators → Use with critical awareness
• Iterate → Find more based on what you have, and notice and record your path
• Add, combine concepts using AND and OR
  ((resilience OR grit) critique) AND (diversity AND inclusion AND equity)
• Common filters: Peer review, format, date, location

Example One

Where do key terms like this come from?

(Subject thesaurus / descriptors, e.g. ERIC ; abstracts of useful articles ; author- or indexer-assigned key words ; Encyclopedia or overview works, e.g. Wikipedia...)

How to find key words?

(Watch for and note them when reading - especially from descriptor, key word, and abstract fields)

Example Two

Databases for topics in Education

Look for specialized limiters (publication type, study type, audience, age, grade level, methodology...)

→ Cited by → Search within (e.g. disability ; poverty ; children)

→ Related article

What is your information environment? What makes up the "literature?"

What roles do various types of sources have?

Empirical vs. non-empirical research? Or what methodology? 

• Database filters can be helpful (e.g. PsycINFO)
• 

No helpful filter? Scan the Methods section:

...The standard empirical article would at this point present inferential statistics as results. That is not necessary here: our sampling of the relevant contents of the dictionary is complete...

Consider keeping a research journal.* In addition to recording your evolving questions and understandings along your research path, record more mundane bits that you may be glad for later.
Include: 

• Key databases and other sources, effective key words/descriptors and combinations, significant journal titles and authors and publishers, ideas for follow up.
• License terms or copyright permissions contacts for information that you may want to cite or use substantially in papers or presentations.
  • Take particular note of scholars and colleagues who are facilitating your work through Open Access and Open Education Practices.
    Consider how this kind of "generous thinking" might inform your own scholarly and professional practice.

​Save and name files according to a plan.

Strategies:

• Email files to yourself, or use your VIU or other file space
• Create folders for specific projects
• Name files consistently, and consider how the names will file. e.g.:
  • ResilienceProject_AuthorLast_AuthorFirst_BriefTitle
  • If file name leads with a date, 2020 07 08 is better than July 08 2020 (and better than 2020 08 07!)

​Make periodic backups.

e.g.: from local drive to cloud, or cloud to local.

Use a citation management tool. 

Consider: Features or functionality that you will need.

* Cooksey, R., & McDonald, G. (2019). How should I record my research journey? (pp. 55-71). In Surviving and thriving in postgraduate research (2nd ed.). Springer. Retrieved from: https://books.google.ca/books?id=_ZSfDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR6&ots=EVg9FsuKjA&lr&pg=PA55#v=onepage&q&f=false

 Engin, M. (2011). Research Diary: A Tool for Scaffolding. International Journal of Qualitative Methods: ARCHIVE, 10(3), 296-306. Retrieved from: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/ijqm/index.php/IJQM/article/view/8069

• If you need only to generate quick citations, the “saved items” function of LibrarySearch may suit your needs.
• If you want to save citations for later use and organize them in folders, Zotero supports those purposes.
• If you are working with others you may value collaborative features (e.g. Zotero group: Education in the 21st Century)