Pre-Search is about being curious. During pre-search, you will gather background information and context* to:
Background and context might include:
*The sources you find during pre-search are not necessarily the sources you will cite in your research papers.
There is a lot of chatter online about the availability (or lack therof) of charging stations. For pre-search purposes today, you search for "electric vehicles" and charging in our eBooks Academic Collection database and find a book called Overcoming Barriers to Deployment of Plug-in Electric Vehicles. Within the book is a chapter:
In this chapter, you learn general information about the types of chargers, what it takes to install them, where they might be located, etc. You also identify a new phrase to search with: charging infrastructure.
When you come back for the research workshop, we can search with the same terms "electric vehicles" and charging to find academic or research articles about this topic, but we should also try "electric vehicles" AND "charging infrastructure". Some examples of the results:
When using Google, you can type a sentence or question and retrieve relevant results. Databases operate differently than search engines, so they require a different search strategy for a few different reasons.
Thus, we recommend that you:
Today, we will use two different types of sources to gather background and context: subject-specific encyclopedias (reference books) and chapters within eBooks. The scope of both of these kinds of resources suit our needs for pre-search very well.
Note: Each of the databases linked below can also be reached via our library home page, bgsu.edu/library, under the "all databases" link.
Full-text encyclopedias on a range of topics that include in-depth, peer-reviewed summaries written by scholars across all fields of study.
Around 2,700 handbooks providing up-to-date overviews of classic and current research across the Humanities, Social Sciences, Education, Psychology, Engineering, and Built Environment from Routledge and CRC Press.
Hundreds of short ebooks (around 100 pages each) that offer concise expert overviews of a diverse range of concepts. Subjects include climate, consciousness, game theory, ancient warfare, economics, and literary theory.
Alternate access link: http://proxy.ohiolink.edu:9099/login?url=https://academic.oup.com/pages/very-short-introductions
The Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion features over 2,000 images and 800 in-depth articles that examine global dress cultures throughout history. It adopts a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary approach to highlight the richness of fashion. Additional reference works include Classic and Modern Writings on Fashion, the A-Z of Fashion, and The Dictionary of Fashion History, along with 200+ academic books on significant fashion writings. The encyclopedia also offers access to museum exhibitions and over 17,000 color images from renowned institutions, plus teaching resources like lesson plans and bibliographic guides.
Full text for hundreds of science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals and other sources.
Thousands of entries on people, concepts, books, and other topics in philosophy written by experts in the field.
Oxford Art Online includes the peer-reviewed, regularly updated Grove Art Online, The Benezit Dictionary of Artists, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, providing access to thousands of articles spanning ancient to contemporary art and architecture, as well as images of works of art, structures, plans, and artist signatures.
Access limited to 3 users at a time.
Statista is an online statistics portal providing access to data from market and opinion research institutions, as well as from business organizations and government institutions.
Full text reports, analysis, news and data from the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization that conducts public opinion polls and social science research.
A vast archive of social science data for research and instruction, containing thousands of digital files of social science research data in political science, sociology, economics, criminal justice, and more.
Music Industry Data provides information about music sales from 1953 to the present day, incorporating thousands of charts from dozens of countries, and including both physical and digital media.
A searchable database of education statistics, mostly for the United States, produced by the U.S. Department of Education.
Market research and industry news covering all aspects of the sports business industry.
Social Explorer provides quick and easy access to modern and historical socioeconomic and demographic data, bringing together quantitative data with a visual interface to make demographic research, the analysis of social trends, and comparison of neighborhoods, communities, counties, and other areas accessible and interactive.