Instructional Guides
This page contains instructional guides to help you build your library skills and improve your ability to locate relevant information resources. There are links to online guides, PDF guides for downloading, brief instructional videos, and archived webinars from library instruction sessions.
Online Guides
Library Skills Guides
- Advanced Research Methods Resources - NEW! From the Department of Research, a series of videos that provide an overview of the Advanced Research Methods courses offered through the Department of Research.
- Alumni Library Services A guide to library services for graduates of Saybrook University, including information about Open Access, dissertations, and alternative library options.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools and Resources Guide - NEW! Starting point to help users learn issues surrounding AI, overview of popular tools, guidance on prompts, citing AI, and more.
- Browser Extensions and Tools - NEW! Information about web browsers, extensions, add-ons, and clearing cache. The tools and tips in this guide will help you improve productivity when searching for information resources.
- Campus Guide to Copyright Created by Copyright Clearance Center to help students, instructors, faculty, and staff of U.S.-based colleges and universities by offering background information about U.S. copyright law. In publishing this guide, CCC is not offering legal advice.
- Citation Managers Introduces users to citation management tools and covers RefWorks, Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, Paperpile, and Papers programs.
- Evaluating Information Resources Locating information is only part of the research process. Deciding which information resources to use is also a necessary step in academic research.
- Google Scholar Search How to sync Google Scholar with library Saybrook library resources plus Google searching tips.
- Grey Literature Guides A directory of grey literature research guides, online courses and webinars including grey literature explained, how to find grey literature, and sources of grey literature.
- How to Create Stable Links to Library Resources Step-by-step help for saving sharable links for the library's eResources.
- LibKey and BrowZine Tools to simplify access to library-licensed and open access journals. LibKey IO is a search tool for finding articles by DOI; LibKey Nomad is a browser extension that makes searching on the Web and accessing content easier; and BrowZine is a tool for finding, reading and monitoring the latest scholarly journals.
- Library Databases A guide to help you learn about what a database is, and how to find, chose and use them.
- Literature Review Research A guide to what a literature review is (and is not) and how to plan and write one.
- PowerNotes at Saybrook - NEW! This research and note-taking tool enables you to create outlines, annotate, cite, and share your work.
- The Research Process A guide to help develop skills in how to develop a research question and find resources to support your thesis.
- Scholarly Publishing A guide to issues in scholarly communication, including publishing, open access, copyright, and author rights.
Saybrook Program Guides
- Saybrook Integrative & Functional Nutrition Guide For students in Integrative & Functional Nutrition MS and PhD programs.
- Saybrook Integrative Social Work Guide For students in the Ph.D. program in Integrative Social Work.
- Saybrook Leadership and Management Guide For students in the Master's and Doctoral programs in Leadership and Management as well as for those in the Business Administration programs.
- Saybrook Mind-Body Medicine Guide For students in the M.S. and Ph.D. programs in Mind-Body Medicine.
- Saybrook Psychology and Counseling Guide For students in Master's and Doctoral Psychology and Counseling programs.
- Saybrook Psychophysiology Guide For students in Psychophysiology and Applied Psychophysiology programs.
- Saybrook Transformative Social Change Guide For students in Master's, Doctoral and Certificate Transformative Social Change programs.
Instructional Videos
- Access Library Content From the Web (Short Tutorial)11 Minutes
Describes tools to connect articles you find in your internet searching to library content. - Become a Library Power User! (Recorded Live Session)50 Minutes
Tips for using the library in a more efficient and effective way. - Effective Search Techniques (Recorded Live Session)31 Minutes
This presentation covers strategies to help with searching both within the library databases and OneSearch and on the internet by syncing searches with the Saybrook library. - Health Sciences Greatest Hits (Recorded Live Session)47 Minutes
Library instruction session covers recommended resources and searching tips for students in health sciences programs. - Library Orientation (Recorded Live Session)27 Minutes
Introduces you to the main sections of the library website. - Managing Citations to Make Information Research - and Paper Writing - Easier (Recorded Live Session)56 Minutes
This video will introduce viewers to citation managers such as RefWorks and Zotero. - Nutrition Greatest Hits (Recorded Live Session)65 Minutes
Learn about the most popular and useful Saybrook Library databases and other information resources in the field of Nutrition in this Welcome Week recorded session. - Psychology Greatest Hits (Recorded Live Session)43 Minutes
This video covers resources and search strategies for psychology and counseling students. - Using Library Databases (Psychology) - (Recorded Session)41 Minutes
Describes what a library database is, how it is better than Google Scholar for academic research, tips and tricks for using them, and examples of searches in psychology databases. Relevant for students in other programs as well.
Watch our library videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKcRjhNe0i51kxv-5B4ydOA
Additional videos forthcoming...
Searching Tips and Techniques
KEYWORD SEARCHING
- Words to use when beginning a search
- Break your research question into main ideas
- The main ideas become simple keywords to search in library databases
- Keep a keyword list
- Use synonyms and antonyms for your keywords
- Example research question extracting keywords: What is the relationship between test performance and retention of ESL students?
- Keyword = test performance, retention, ESL students
- Synonyms: tests, exams, test-taking skill, test anxiety, academic achievement
- Antonyms: student dropouts, student attrition, dropout prevention
Use AND, NOT and OR between search terms to narrow or broaden a search.
Use quotation marks around one or more keywords or a phrase to define precisely how you want the words to appear in the results.
TRUNCATION AND WILDCARDS
Truncation allows for search of words that could have multiple endings and uses the asterisk (*) symbol.
Wildcards are symbols, such as a question mark (?), to replace letters in words where there are unknown or multiple possible characters.
NESTING
Similar to formulas in algebra, nesting is useful for concepts that are expressed in multiple ways.
Example: teenager = adolescent = young adult = teen
- Use parentheses () to keep concepts that are alike together. This tells the database to search nested terms first.
PROXIMITY SEARCHING
How close are two or more search terms in the results?
Example: curriculum theories = theories of curriculum = theories involving curriculum = theories about curriculum, etc.
- Search curriculum N3 theories: searches for curriculum within three words of theories
FIELD CODES
A field is a specific part of a database record such as author, title, subject, year of publication, etc. Use the Advanced Search within OneSearch or individual databases to enter search terms and use the dropdown menus to search by a particular field.
SUBJECT TERMS AND DATABASE THESAURI
Most databases have a controlled vocabulary which are descriptive words assigned to an article. Articles with similar themes are classified together under a specific subject heading. Using the terms in the thesaurus is a more focused way to search.
KEYWORDS VS. SUBJECT TERMS
