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GEOG 103: World Regional Geography

Search Tips

Take a minute to write down some keywords. Feel free to use a thesaurus, map, or Wikipedia to help you generate terms! Keywords could include:

  • Synonyms or connected words (emigrate and migrate)
  • Location names, including broader terms (city, state/province, country). Consider: has the name for this country changed? Could you use a name from the time period you're investigating to generate better results? (e.g., USSR v Russia)
  • Time period--unless you have a very specific date/event, identify the term for the general time period. (E.g., post-war, Victorian age, Cold War, etc.)
  • Connecting words--impact, effect, influence 
  • Phrases--Jewish diaspora, open borders policy, etc. 

Do a subject search paired with a keyword search:

screenshot of search fields within Academic Search complete with subject (Jewish diaspora) and keyword (USSR or Soviet Union) and keyword (Cold War)

You can also add connection words, separated by "or:"

screenshot of search terms within academic search complete with keyword (Jewish diaspora) and keyword (Cold War) and keyword (impact or effect or influence)

Notice keywords and subjects supplied by authors, and integrate relevant ones into your search terms. 

screenshot of author-supplied keywords at beginning of academic journal article

 

A peer-reviewed article has been examined by other experts in the field to make sure the research is academically sound. Original research published in a peer-reviewed journal will be considered peer reviewed; you can find out if a journal is peer reviewed by looking at the journal's website. Many databases will have a "peer reviewed" filter that you can apply to your search results:

screenshot of filters from Biological Abstracts with a red arrow pointing to "peer reviewed" filter

Google Scholar can be a great resource for accessing academic research. Go to scholar.google.com and enter your keywords. Use an advanced search to be more specific about which phrases you'd like included in your search.

screenshot of a Google scholar search result with a red arrow from the word cite pointing towards: "Click here to generation citation" and a red arrow pointing from related articles to "click here to generate other articles related to this topic."