You might see these words mentioned on this guide, or used by your professors:
Liaison librarian = An expert researcher in the subject area who can be consulted for course projects.
Article = A piece of writing included with others in a newspaper, magazine, journal or other publication. Which MBAs make more? is an article from the magazine Harvard Business Review.
Research databases = Search interfaces that enable library users to find articles from journals and magazines. This infographic explains the relationship between articles, journals and databases.
Peer-reviewed journals = Scholarly publications in which articles are approved by other specialists in the field before they are printed. Many library databases allow you to filter results to see only peer-reviewed articles. This infographic explains the peer-review process.
JMU Library Catalog = Search the print books, e-books, films, etc., that you can access as a JMU student.
Interlibrary loan (ILL) = Request materials that JMU doesn't own (such as books, articles or films). These are loaned from other libraries and usually have no cost to the student.
Off-campus access = JMU pays for you to have access to highly specialized research databases. Therefore you must have a JMU e-ID and password to access them. Instructions to use library resources off-campus.
This 2-minute video from RMIT University explains library databases from a student's perspective.
This 3-minute video from Western Carolina University explains what is meant by a scholarly or peer-review article.
This 3-minute video from Vanderbilt University explains the differences between scholarly and popular articles.
This 5-minute video from the Kishwaukee College Library shows how to read a scholarly article for research.
This 3-minute video from McMaster Libraries explains how to choose keywords for database searching when doing research.
This 3-minute video from NCSU show how you can tell if a source is credible.
This 2-minute video from NCSU explains what a citation is and why do we do it.
This 5-minute video from NCSU examines the characteristics of a research article from an academic journal.
This 10-minute video from NCSU shows what a literature review is, explains its purpose in research, and tells what should you expect when writing one.
This 3-minute video from UNC shows how to move from a idea to an argument for a research project.
This 5-minute video from Laurier Library explains how to choose a manageable topic for your research assignment.