Wright State University Library Catalog Search
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- How-To VideosLearn how to navigate and use library resources, including searching, citing, saving, and requesting materials.
- Research ToolkitResearch Toolkit workshops are designed to address the most common challenges students face in doing college-level research, including navigating databases, locating relevant sources, and making sense of information once it is found.
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- Subject LibrariansLearn which librarian specializes in your area of research.
Articles: Start here
Use limiters with your results. You can choose "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals," "Academic Journals" or "Books."
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Get full-text access to magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals in the sciences, social sciences, business, education, and the humanities. Full-text may be available via Find-It. Useful place to begin broad searches for general topics.
- Environment Complete This link opens in a new window
Indexes environmental studies literature including agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, environmental law, technology, marine and freshwater science, natural resources, pollution & waste management, public policy, and urban planning. Coverage begins in the 1950s. Full-text may be available via Find-It.
- Web of Science All Databases This link opens in a new window
This option will search a combination of all the available science databases produced by this publisher. The search will include familiar citation, biology, medicine, and patent databases. Once connected, review the "select a database" option for a complete list. Use this option if you are not sure which Clarivate database may offer the best results.
Evaluating information sources
Use these methods as you evaluate information.
- Evaluating Information - Applying the CRAAP TestCRAAP is an acronym for a variety of questions you can ask yourself about whether you should use information. It stands for: Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy & Purpose. You should get in the habit of asking these types of questions about information before you use it.
Comparison
Comparing sources will help you determine which ones are the best and most appropriately relate to your topic. If you conduct a search with a search engine or database and find two different sources that look useful, look at both of them and compare them. One may be more recent, has more information, or seems less biased. That source is the one to choose. Then, you might compare that source with others and see which is most appropriate.
Corroboration
When you find new information that you don't know to be true or not, look for another source to back up the information. If you find another source with the same information, that source corroborates the information in the first. If you find one source that makes one claim, and then find four more sources that disagree with that claim, which are you more likely to believe? The answer to this question will also depend on who is writing those sources. What if the former source in this case is written by a scientist, and the latter four sources are a Wikipedia article, a blog post, and two other web sites that do not offer the author's name or credentials. Which source(s) would you trust in that case?
Practicing your presentation
Students assigned to give presentations for class can reserve Room 216 in Dunbar Library, which is similar in setup and technology to classrooms on campus.
News from Science (AAAS)
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Questions? Ask your librarian!
