Research Methods

Search Skills

• Basic concepts. Concepts and terminology useful in thinking about the two main approaches to search and retrieval of documents. Very brief. See also the larger glossary.
• Search operator comparison. A one page table comparing basic search operators in three different search engines.
• Search tips, part one. This covers elementary topics like controlled vocabulary; precision vs recall; how to find better search terms; how to retrieve more or less in a bibliographic database; how to group or combine terms (when a search engine allows grouping of terms with logical and proximity operators). The problems of synonymy and polysemy; single search (federated and unified discovery search systems which attempt to deal with multiple databases).
• Search tips, part two. More on searching a controlled vocabulary database vs a natural natural language document set. Problems inherent in relevance ranking and secret automatic features. The future.
• Recent changes in LC subject headings. Including headings for God and the Bible.
• Assignments and drills. Exercises to help you develop better search skills. Includes some homework assignments for RS101, DM102, BS1004 and other courses.

Database Manuals and Tutorials

Connecting to Databases

• BIBLOS connection and configuration info
• Database connection and configuration info

BIBLOS

• BIBLOS (basics). Summary of search operators and the basics in extremely compressed and incomplete form. For the impatient.
• BIBLOS (detail). The Long Guide to BIBLOS. Also an approximate pdf version as of March 2007.
• BIBLOS assignments to help you develop search skills
• Browser search box. How to customize the search bar in Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 to search BIBLOS anytime without logging in or going to the library website.

EBSCO databases

• Bare Bones Basics of Searching EBSCO databases . Introduction. Overview.
• ATLA/ATLAS tips. Assumes you already know how to use EBSCO databases.
• Using SmartText. An EBSCO natural language query processor.
• Practice searching ATLA (displays questions in one frame, and allows live searches of ATLA in another frame; answers appear on demand).
• ATLA assignments to help you develop search skills
• OTA/NTA tips. Old Testament Abstracts and New Testament Abstracts. Assumes you already know how to use EBSCO databases.
• L’Année philologique. Tips specific to APh. Assumes you already know how to use EBSCO databases.
• EBSCO databases manuals. Detailed user guides/manuals. Also available searching, browsing, print/email as MS Word files, but perhaps not most recent versions.
• EBSCO databases. Online help.
• PsycINFO tips (Not yet available)

OCLC FirstSearch databases

• Introduction to FirstSearch databases. OCLC documentation. Brief.
• FirstSearch databases. How to use OCLC FirstSearch databases, illustrated with WorldCat examples

Other Databases/Systems

• Religious and Theological Abstracts.
• Index Theologicus. Very current!
• Elenchus of ETL . Elenchus of Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses. Theology in general.
• Perseus. Greco-Roman literature in Greek, Latin and English translation.
• TLG Online. Nearly exhaustive corpus of ancient Greek literature.
• Searchable Greek Inscriptions. All the Greek inscriptions formerly on the PHI cd-rom (but not the PHI papyri). NOT included in TLG.
• Communication Abstracts.
• eJournal List. How to use this resource to determine if the article you want is available online. You must already have a specific article citation; this tool does not let you search by subject.
• Google Search Operator. Brief summary. But remember ranking is the key to Google's effectiveness, not use of search opertors.
• Library Materials in Google Scholar. How to use Google Scholar to identify relevant books and identify which library near you owns the book

Research Theory

• Introduction to Basic/Secondary Research Method
• Bibliography on Basic Research Method. Sorry, we have removed this because it was so out of date.
• Introduction to Advanced/Original Research Method. (Not yet available, but covered in BS1004 course.)
• How to prepare for a Dissertation Research Consultation. For doctoral students.

Writing

• Books on academic writing. Annotated bibliography on scholarly writing and style guides.
• Turabian supplement. DTS supplement to Turabian. Explains which Turabian options to use and lists additional rules specific to DTS. Turabian mistakes lists most common mistakes.
• Turabian citation examples. Power point sides showing example citations conforming to Turabian style.
• MS Word template for thesis. And MS Word template for paper. Use these MS Word templates to format your papers/thesis according to Turabian style. Download, open in MS Word, click Save As (under the File menu), pick Save as Type "Document Template". This will cause copies to be saved to your templates folder.
• DTS Mellel User Group site. Use the Mellel word processor? This site contains Mellel DTS style templates and style sets for papers, theses, and dissertations. Not official. This is a student project.
• Footnote software. Bibliographic citation management software used to help you create footnotes and bibliographies.
• Intro to Zotero. Zotero generates footnotes and bibliographies according to Chicago/Turabian style.
• EndNote X2 introduction explains how to use the EndNote program to create footnotes and bibliographies. It includes a section on how to download and import records from online databases. For MUCH more detail see Endnote version X1 for Windows manual or Endnote version X1 for Mac manual.
• Unicode fonts for biblical studies. The problem of document portability. Links to recommended fonts.
• Breaking into print. Annotated bibliography on how to be published.

Research Aids

Here is a potpourri of practical tips and aids to research.

• Request a Book via InterLibrary Loan
• Request a Journal Article via InterLibrary Loan
• Copyright expiration
• Glossary of library research terminology.
• Theological abbreviations
• LC call numbers. Syntax, organization, and sorting rules explained.
• Translation services. How to find a published translation. Free and fee based translation services.