Reference Desk 610.902.8537
ARTICLES provide a shorter treatment of your topic or focus on one particular aspect of your topic.
Databases are used to locate articles. The primary periodical databases for Education are:
Access is available from the library's homepage by selecting first the link to Databases, then the Education Databases subject link.
An empirical research article is considered a primary source that reports the methods and results of an original study performed by the article's authors. The kind of study may vary. The researchers may have done an experiment, interviewed subjects, or surveyed subjects. In all cases, the researchers have collected raw data. The authors then analyze the data and draw conclusions from the results of the analysis.
A review article is considered a secondary source. A review article does not report original (empirical) research of its own but reports on research done by other authors. The authors of review articles seek to suggest new research directions or to identify patterns among existing research studies.
| No Operator | Searches words together as a phrase in the exact order in which you have typed them. |
| AND | Retrieves records containing both or all of the search terms joined by AND; the middle sliver of a Venn Diagram. |
| OR | Retrieves records containing either or any of the search terms joined by OR; everything included in a Venn Diagram |
| NOT | Retrieves records that do not contain a specific term. |
| ( ) |
Groups words together so that you can relate phrases by operators or layer your operators. For example: (feminist or feminism) AND (literary (theory or criticism)) Just like high school algebra, parentheses must be in pairs, and the inner-most pair is worked first. |
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