Bachelor of Integrated Studies CHAD Cohort

When it comes time to search, you can paste your research question into a search box, but that can sometimes provide strange results. Instead, try identifying all the nouns (and words that can become nouns) from your search. For example:

• What are the causes of methamphetamine use among street youth in B.C.'s urban centres?
• Is cognitive behaviour therapy an effective method for limiting addiction-related cravings?

These will most likely be the search terms you use to begin your search. Then, consider any synonyms or alternate terms that you might use:

• street youth: homeless youth, homeless teenagers
• urban centres: cities, urban
• limiting: control, treatment
• addiction: substance use

These will be alternatives if the search words you are using are not giving you the results you need. Note that you are starting with what you know. Don't try to guess how researchers express these ideas - you will discover that as you do your research.

TIP: If you want to search for a phrase (e.g., cognitive behaviour therapy), use quotation marks around the phrase: "cognitive behaviour therapy"

FindIt is a search tool that allows you to search most of the UFV Library's digital content, as well as the library's physical collection, in one place. Think of it as the library's Google. Like Google, you can type your research question into the search box, or just a few key words describing your topic. Use the FindIt search engine from the UFV LIbrary's home page, or start here:

1. By default, FindIt looks for your search words as keywords, but you can also search for specific titles or authors.
2. This is the search you entered; you can modify it at any time to look for a different set of results.
3. This is the number of results (articles, books, videos, documents) retrieved for your search. By default, FindIt will display 30 search results at a time.
4. FindIt is configured to search only for those items that are available in the library's collections. Click on the "x" to remove this limiter and expand your search (but careful - you'll be seeing items that may not be available).
5. You can easily limit your search so that you see only scholarly, peer-reviewed articles (or other resource types).
6. By default, FindIt displays the most relevant items at the top (relevance means that all or mostly all of your search words appear in the title, subject, or abstract/summary of the item). You can change this to sort results by date (oldest or newest items first).
7. You can share the search with yourself or others, so that you can return to it at a later date. Note that this link will not include all of the limiters that you added to your search.
8. Repeat your search in databases that focus on Canadian publications. There will be some duplication, but you should also find results you didn't see in FindIt.
9. FindIt contains a wide range of source types. Icons are used to represent different types, such as this icon representing academic journals.
10. If a copy of the article is available from FindIt, you'll see a link here. Click on the link to access the article.
11. If the full text of an article is not available from FindIt, the library may have access to it from another source. Use "Full Text Finder" to look for another source. If it's not available at all, you can request the item through Interlibrary Loan, and we'll try to find it from another library and then send it to you.
12. Click on the title to see more information about a resource, including an APA-formatted citation (but make sure you proofread these citations - they are not always correct!).
13. Click on the folder icon to collect articles to email to yourself later. Note, however, that the folder is only temporary - it will work for this session only.

Email Results

There are two ways to email results: one result at a time (click on the title of a result), or as a group of results (view a folder of saved results). A few useful things to know:

• By default, FindIt will email the results as an APA-formatted citation. You can choose a different style, or choose the Brief Citation format.
• By default, FindIt will include the full-text of an article, if available within FindIt (i.e., not as a link to another site).
• If you are taking a short break, make sure you email any items in your folder before you step away. FindIt will time out after a period of time, meaning that it will close your session from inactivity.

Cite

You can view your results in one of dozens of citation styles, including APA (the default). To view the citation for an individual result, click on the title, then the "cite" button. FindIt will also, by default, send APA formatted citations when emailing results.

Permalink

If you want to share the full-text of an individual result with yourself or others (for example, in your Blackboard course), use this link. Note that only authorized UFV users (e.g., current students, faculty) will be able to access the document.

Limit Results

Limiters allow us to narrow and focus our results so that they better match our research topic. The most useful limiters are:

• Subject
  This is the number one way that the language of the discipline(s) is represented in the database, and it is the limiter that is used most. Sort the subjects by name to make it easier to view variations on a subject. (Note that you may find multiple "versions" of a particular subject because the results are coming from different disciplinary perspectives.) 
• Publication Date
  When having the most recent research matters, you can use the date slider to limit to a particular time period. For historical events, you may want to gain a perspective from the time of the event, which is another way to use the date slider. You can also just type a date into the box, and press Enter.
• Geography
  Sometimes our research questions focus on a specific geography, and this limiter allows us to find those results that relate to that geography. This limiter includes continents (e.g., Europe), countries, states/provinces, and cities, so make sure you read through the full list of limiters. Be sure not to use the Geography limiter too soon in your information gathering, however, as it will exclude results from other jurisdictions that might actually be useful. For example, imagine you are writing about potential solutions to a problem in a specific location; if you limit your research just to that location, you might miss out on some solutions that have been tried elsewhere and that just might work for the setting you are writing about.
• Resource Types
  Sometimes we want to focus on specific resources types, such as newspapers (a great source for personal stories and contemporary coverage of an event), reports, or popular magazines (which can be helpful for illustrating popular culture or social customs). This limiter allows you to weed out all of the resource types you don't want.
• Language
  Sometimes we hit on a topic that is of interest around the world, and find a number of results popping up written in languages we don't speak. Use this limiter to focus on results written in languages that you do speak.

TIP: Always click on "Show More" if you want select more than one item within each limiter category. The same limiter can be used multiple times in succession, because each time the limiter is applied you end up with a different, more focused, set of results.

Sometimes we are interested only in a specific disciplinary perspective; for example, we might be interested in the Indigenous perspective, or a social worker's perspective, or even a cultural/arts perspective. We can choose from among more than 125 research databases to access information sources that reflect that perspective.

Here are a few select research databases; for a comprehensive list, categorized by subject area, see our A-Z List (link below).

There is a wide body of literature produced by governments (at all levels) that focuses on policy, legislation, and more, related to a wide range of topics. Much of this literature is made available on the web, and Google has some excellent tools for uncovering it (and focusing in on the government documents, rather than information from other sources). The most useful trick is the "site:" limiter, and here's how you use it:

[search terms] site:[domain extension]

The domain extension is the last part of a web site's domain name, such as ".com" or ".org" or ".ca".

Here are some ways you can limit your search to government publications using Google:

To find the proper domain extension for other governments, search for the government site and note the domain. For example:

• Government of...
• Province of...
• State of...
• City of...