Research Help

What's in the Library & Why should I use it?

Why use the library? The library purchases and subscribes to credible, current information on topics related to your program of study at Georgian and they are all available to you free of charge. These sources include high quality, credible books, articles, videos, stats and data and specialized databases.

And here's an added bonus: the library has real humans to help you, along with tools that will help you search, access, and cite what you find.

While there are many tools on the web that seem like they will do your research for you, be aware that using Generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT and similar apps) can lead to academic integrity issues. These tools have a tendency to fabricate sources that don’t exist, generate references and citations that are incorrect, and can even plagiarize or infringe on copyright and intellectual property without your knowledge.

Using the library to find credible sources for your assignments is an easy step to improving your integrity as a student and as a future employee. Learn to identify and use real, credible sources with the help of the library!

How can you get started? The first thing you should do is take a careful look at your assignment to determine what specific types of sources you may require, and any other instructions.

With your assignment in hand, load the library’s website and start your search by entering a keyword into the Page1+ search box, or access the database page to locate any specific sources noted in your assignment.

What will you find? Chapters in Books and eBooks are a great starting point for your research, often providing an overview, showing the structure of a topic and related information. Books are easily identified in your Page 1 plus results list, labeled by the word book and an image of the cover. We have lots of eBooks that you can access via a link, and physical books can be accessed in various campus libraries.

Videos may provide a visual representation of your topic and may be useful for presentations. Most videos are accessible just by clicking the "Available Online” link.

Articles are found in different types of publications, such as magazines, newspapers, and academic journals. Scholarly articles are published in academic journals, focused on a specific subject and written by experts in that field. Scholarly articles are typically considered to be very credible. News articles are good for finding current information or reports that were written soon after events occurred, and they’re brief and easy to read. Trade magazines and journals are published for a specific industry or profession and contain articles that are good sources for overviews of issues and trends, identifying groups or associations, and for finding related advertising and industry contacts.

Remember, the definition of what’s credible on a topic is highly dependent on the topic you’re working with.

Check with the library and learning services team for help!

Develop your research question & actually find stuff

Picking a research topic for an assignment can be overwhelming. Here are some ways you can work with a topic to develop a research question and get started.

Whether the topic is assigned, or you’ve picked your own, you’re likely starting with a broad topic. Censorship is an example of a very broad topic. Consider what you’d like to learn about the topic and try phrasing the topic as a question to make it more manageable.

Try narrowing your search by looking at one aspect of the topic. For example, you could look at a specific industry using the question, “How does censorship affect Canadian Libraries?”. Another way to narrow your topic is by looking at it in relation to social, political, or economic issues. You might ask, “What laws protect citizens from censorship?”

You could also narrow your topic by considering a specific population group, such as students, Indigenous people, children, or people working in a profession. For example, “How does censorship affect children’s literacy?” Consider examining the topic in relation to a specific location, such as Canada, or in relationship to another topic -- for example, “How does censorship affect freedom of speech on the Internet?”

Once you have restated your broad topic as a more manageable research question, identify the main concepts in your research question as your keywords. Keywords can be single words or phrases.

Consider the question: “How does censorship affect Canadian Libraries?” What are the main concepts?

Let’s try censorship, libraries and Canada.

Ready to try your keywords? The next step is to connect them together to find the most relevant results for your project.

Start your search using Page 1 plus, located on the home page of the library website at library.georgiancollege.ca. Enter the keyword “censorship” in the search box, then click Search. While we’re specifically looking at the library’s resources right now, you’ll get better results from Google, too, if you start with your keywords!

Notice how many results Page 1 plus has found for your keyword “censorship.” There are too many to review! Instead, build a better search by adding your other keywords to the search box. Click on the Advanced Search Box to continue. Each concept from your research question should be placed in its own line.

Try the search using censorship on line 1, libraries on line 2, and then use the plus icon to add a new line with the keyword Canada.

Page 1+ automatically applies the connector AND to combine your keywords into one search. This will narrow your search to a more manageable and relevant set of results. Now you’re seeing results in Page 1 plus that contain the keywords “censorship” AND “libraries” AND “Canada”. It retrieved only the sources that matched all keywords.

How did your search work out? If you didn't find what you wanted, you might need to use alternate keywords - different words or phrases that have the same meaning as your main keywords. When we searched censorship AND libraries AND Canada, we got results that were more focused on our research question.

Not sure what keywords or alternate keywords to use? Search a thesaurus, skim the table of contents in a book or textbook, read the subjects and keywords in a relevant article. Google or Wikipedia, and even a Generative A-I tool can be helpful to generate ideas and keywords, just check with your professor to make sure it’s okay!

Let’s try a search with some alternate keywords.

Use the connector or to include alternate keywords in your search. Place them in the same search box as the corresponding main keyword. Type the connector or between the keywords - Page 1 plus doesn’t do this part for you. For our search on censorship, let’s try adding in “freedom of speech” as an alternate keyword. Notice that including the alternate keyword increased our results.

Using what you've found & Why we cite

Information and misinformation are everywhere, so we need to carefully evaluate all sources of information that we use. This video focuses on evaluating library resources, but make sure to check out our video on evaluating web resources, too!

At school, using and citing credible, reliable sources is essential for success in your assignments and maintaining your academic integrity.

During co-op job placements, part time work, and your future career, focusing on credible, reliable sources improves your integrity as an employee and can contribute to your success and future opportunities.

So how do we evaluate and decide what sources are best? For your academic work, start with a careful review of your assignment, asking yourself: Do you need to use a specific resource, type of source or number of sources? Are there any date ranges you need to be aware of? Should you be looking for sources of a specific length? Then, consider your specific topic. Does your topic require very current information, such as when talking about technology or health care advances?

Within the library databases, review the titles of items in your search results list, looking for the keywords that you searched for. Sources that have your keywords in their title and subjects may be more relevant to your topic. Double check that what you’ve found meets the assignment requirements.

When you find a source that looks promising, click on the title to read more about it. You may need to scroll down. The source type determines what details are available. An article may have an abstract, which is a summary of the main points of the article, while a book or video may have a table of contents or a description. If the selected item meets the criteria, read the complete item with your research question and assignment in mind. Don’t forget to use the library’s tools to save the item for future review.

Found some sources? Great! Now, consider how you will use them.

Anytime you take ideas from someone else's work and incorporate those ideas into your own work, in any form, you need to give credit to the author or creator. If you don't, you are passing that author's ideas or words off as your own, and that is a breach of academic integrity.

There are lots of tools to make this easier. You can use the Library’s citation tool to help generate a basic APA citation for sources you find within most of our databases. The Writing Centre, Language Help Centre, and Research-Help at the library are all available to help you. There are also lots of web-based tools that can help.

Careful citation and referencing of all sources you use is a great way to avoid academic integrity issues. Cite a source when you quote, paraphrase, or summarize it, use charts, graphs or images from it, or include facts that you learned from a source that are not common knowledge. In-text citations (a small notation within your writing or on your slide) should appear in the body of your assignment, and all sources used must be included in a reference list at the end of your work.

Remember, you’re responsible for the output of the tools you use. If you’re permitted to use a Generative A-I (GenA-I) tool (such as ChatGPT, Copilot), make sure you cite it! You are responsible for the information that it generates, just as you are responsible for checking the validity of citations generated using the library’s database or another tool.

While it’s easy to create content with GenA-I (such as ChatGPT, Copilot or similar apps), the output of these tools frequently contains fabricated, plagiarized, and biased information. This can affect your integrity as a student, resulting in breaches of academic integrity.

At work, choosing to use an unauthorized GenA-I tool can result in the unintentional sharing of private or proprietary information and decisions made on inaccurate or completely fabricated data or facts. This can have serious consequences for your personal integrity and your future career.

Check with your professor or the Library and Learning Services team if you have questions!