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How Do I Find Research Worksheets?

A worksheet to help plan and track your research.

Need to organize and record your research? Try using the following research worksheet as a template.

Sample Research Worksheet
1. Topic prevention of bullying in the workplace 
2. Search Limits Languages:  English
Publication Dates:  2015 to the present

Source Types:

☐ Books

☑ Journal Articles
    - Peer-reviewed only: ☑ Yes  ☐ No

☐ Popular Magazine Articles 

☐ Trade Journal (or Magazine) Articles 

☐ News


☐ Dissertations & Theses

☐ Statistics & Data

☐ Conference Papers & Proceedings

☐ Reports (e.g., Company, Country, Industry)

☐ Videos & Audio

☐ Other (specify):

3. Search Tools

Use Omni, Databases and Research Guides on the Library’s home page to identify databases and other search tools covering your topic and your search limits. 

Core Search Tools [in a field of study]:

Secondary Search Tools [in other related fields of study]: 

4. Search Terms

Break your topic down into individual concepts.

For each concept develop a list of  keywords, synonyms, subject headings and descriptors. †

Combine words describing the same or similar concept with OR. Combine different concepts with AND. ††

Use truncation or wildcard symbols to pick up word variations.†††

Use quotes “ ” around words to find exact phrases

   Concept A

 

 

 

 

AND

 Concept B

 

 

 

 

AND

 Concept C
bully* workplace* prevent*
OR mobbing work deter*
OR harass* office stop*
OR ... job manag*
OR   ... ...
OR      
Construct a search string using your search terms.

Use parentheses ( ) when using a mix of Boolean operators.††		 (bully* OR mobbing OR harass*) AND (workplace* OR work OR office OR job) AND (prevent* OR deter* OR stop* OR manag*)

5. Search Results
 

 

Search Tool:    Business Source Premier (BSI) (SU Subject Terms) + most search limits
Date:                 June 14, 2021
# Results:         88
Notes:

  • No language limit, although most articles retrieved are in English.
  • Useful subject terms in this database: Bullying in the workplace; Prevention of bullying in the workplace.
  • Also consider using subject terms Cyberbullying; Prevention of cyberbullying;  Bullying prevention in conjunction with the workplace related search terms.
  • Emailed 10 articles to review.

Search Tool:    ProQuest One Business (All Subjects SU) + all search limits
Date:                June 14, 2021
# Results:         126
Notes:

  • Got 126 results when search limits were selected before search submitted. 
  • Useful subjects in this database  include Bullying; Workplaces; Work environment; Prevention Programs.
  • Emailed 15 articles to review.

Search Tool:     Web of Science – Core Collection (Topic) + most search limits
Date:                  June 12, 2021
# Results:         1,409
Notes:             

  • No peer-reviewed or journal limits, but most items in this database are both.
  • Consider using Incivility as another search term for the concept of bullying.
  • The search term deter* retrieved items with variations of the word determine rather than deter. Dropping this search term produced 1,183 results.  
  • Relevance of results is mixed. Many articles retrieved on school bullying or on unrelated topics (e.g., brown bear attacks, molecular gas)
  • Need to refine and review search results.  

† Concepts 
To develop a list of words for each concept in your topic …

  • check citations, abstracts, articles and bibliographies to identify terms used by authors writing in the field
  • review subject headings, descriptors and thesaurus terms used for the topic in catalogues, databases and other search tools
  • continue to add words that come up frequently in your searching

​ †† Combining Words using Boolean Operators - AND, OR, NOT

  • AND = all of these words
    • example: communication AND organizations
    • results will include all stated words
    • narrows search
  • OR = any of these words
    • example: salary OR compensation OR income
    • results will include at least one of the stated words
    • broadens search
  • NOT = none of these words
    • example: galaxy NOT phone
    • results will exclude stated word(s) following NOT
    • narrows search
    • Caution use the NOT operator with extreme caution, since it may result in the inadvertent loss of relevant results; there may be items that include both the wanted and unwanted terms and all would be eliminated from the results if the NOT operator is used
  • (  ) use parentheses when including more than one Boolean operator in a single search string
    • ensures stated words are combined and processed in the order intended
      • without parentheses, search terms will automatically be processed from left to right; the AND operator will be processed before the OR operator, and the NOT operator will be processed last
      • to change the natural order of operations, place parentheses around words using the OR operator so that anything enclosed within parentheses is processed first
        example: recruitment AND (teachers OR professors OR instructors)

††† Truncation or Wildcard Symbols …

  • can vary depending on the search tool being used; the asterisk * is the most common, but a dollar sign $ or question mark ? are often used as well; check the help section of your database or search tool to determine which symbol to use
  • can be used to find word variations in a single search
    • manag*    finds manage, management, managing, manager, managerial, etc.
    • labo*r       finds both labor [U.S. spelling] and labour [British/Canadian spelling]
    • wom*n     finds both woman [singular] and women [plural]
  • Caution choose the placement of the symbol carefully to avoid irrelevant results
    •  for example, man* will find manage and management, as well as man, manic, manufacture, Manitoba and other unintended terms
    • if truncation proves problematic, spell out the desired word variations in full using the Boolean operator OR between them, e.g., manage OR management
  • typically broadens a search 
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