COMM 300 - Principles of Communication: Developing Your Search

1. Identify your information need

For beginning your search for research articles, consider your research question and identify the key components. Research questions will usually have at least a few components, including the target population. 

How do relationships with influencers or celebrities on social media impact teens?

• Concept 1: influencer/celebrity relationships
• Concept 2: social media
• Concept 3: impact
• Concept 4: teens

Also, consider the other criteria; for example: Do you need peer-reviewed articles? Do you need the most recent research or an overview of how the research has evolved over time? 

2. Define your terms

Do any of the concepts need to be operationalized or more focused? Remember, the variables need to be measurable in some way.  

For example, what does "impact" mean? We'll need to decide if we want to look at more specific aspects such as well-being or stress -- something that can be measured or discovered with a quantitative or qualitative research method. 

3. Brainstorm synonyms or related terms that might be helpful for the search

• Concept 1: parasocial relationships 
• Concept 2: social media
• Concept 3: stress, anxiety
• Concept 4: teenagers, adolescents

Scope and Functionality Differences

Disciplinary databases like Communication Source and PsycINFO search a defined set of resources, all focused on a particular field of study (e.g. Communication and Psychology) 

• established list of journals indexed
• dissertations
• conference proceedings

Functionality:

• Complex searches possible
• Searches keyword in title, abstract, and other record fields
• Can use subject headings to search
• Results ranked by publication date (newest first)

Google Scholar searches across resources from all disciplines/subject areas:

• journals publisher websites
• professional association websites
• university websites
• Google Books

Functionality:

• Searches the full text of the article for keywords
• No subject headings  
• Results ranked by combination of times cited and Google algorithm

Before you start searching for resources, take a few moments to think of the relevant terms that you might want to search with. This will help you build and revise your search.

Another valuable way to find related articles is to utilize the references and "cited by"s of any article you already have. Article authors have done a literature review, and so they have identified more articles on the topic for you. 

Also, after an article has been published, other authors working in the same research are likely to cite it in their literature review. Most databases will display a "cited by" link to other articles. For example: