- As I’ve begun researching my topic further I found myself struggling to filter notable sources. This may be because I was looking through too many databases (Google Scholar, Syracuse Libraries: Proquest, JSHOR, etc.) without refining my search engine. Instead, I was sifting through quick content searches with conflicting and indecisive interests. Because of this it took me a while to finally settle on just one source but eventually I found an appropriate article written on language diversity in the international workplace. Given my topic of interest it helped to look through a database that was pertinent to the field. For this reason I chose the LLBA: Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts however it did become intense handling numerous related articles. One tip I guess I would suggest would be to work more with less (instead of continuously trying to find the perfect source)!
- Some of the research topics I had in mind came about from my unit one assignment. From the article I chose the authors addressed limitations to their study and suggestions for further areas of future research. As of now I’m trying to find relevant work under this scope though I am a bit uncertain with concluding if a source is outdated (i.e. an article writing about the state of research then in 2006 compared to the research now) and if it can still be of value. Apart from this, I hope to find which voices are especially important to represent.
Writing and organizational cultures
I agree with your first post comment — it can be overwhelming! I’ve been struggling to narrow the data pool and know which is right but your piece about finding a search engine that has exactly what you need instead of the broader ones help. Definitely going to be using that going forward!
I know it can be hard to look through so many databases but I usually settle on Syracuse Libraries because it makes it easy to filter through multiple articles. When I am looking for something specific I usually type in two or three key words and filter for a reviewed article. I also search for articles published in the past 3 years because I feel it provides fresh insight to each new topic. I hope some of these ideas will help bring down the search time for your articles in the future.
Good advice, Bryan–sometimes we do better pushing ourselves to do a deep dive into a single well, rather than trying to look at everything.
There are 2 solid approaches in what you mention here–selecting a database like JSTOR that has broad coverage across a lot of different social science and humanities fields OR going to a subject-specific database (like the language one you name above) and focusing there. In tandem, those 2 search tools will generally yield good results.