The school I go to is great in helping students, and on the first day of class a Librarian came through to teach us about database searches. I was already familiar with most of the techniques, but I know that this is not common knowledge, so I have compiled it here for reference!



I'm going to walk you through this with a paper that I wrote, so you can see how you can use this info for your own papers.

This was a current event paper for my first class in Child Development. I decided to focus on "boy's toys" vs. "girl's toys" as this was an issue I had run into frequently during my career as a product developer for children's products. I was able to create fun cover pages for papers in this class, a freedom I had no problems taking advantage of!

Why Wikipedia?
First, understand that Wikipedia both is and isn't the best place to go for information what you are writing about. Wikipedia is a source of information that is constantly edited by everyone. You can go in and edit an article, and add whatever you want to it, so the information may be credible, but there's always a chance it won't be.

What's great about Wikipedia is that sometimes sources will be cited. These sources can be a great starting point on your search for your Works Cited Page elements.

Start With A Topic
If you don't know what you will be writing about, get that squared away. I already knew what my topic was in this paper, as provided by the article on the blog Scary Mommy.

This article hit the web at the time when Target removed its gender labeling from toys. It explains the word choices and subtle gender stereotyping that goes into how kids are raised, and how these stereotypes can shape a child's future.

Compile a Keyword List
What you'll want to do is start compiling a list of keywords. A keyword is a term that most people use when searching for a specific subject in a search engine. I decided to go with the keyword "sexism", seeing as this was a word that many people are familiar with, and typed it into the Wikipedia search bar.

If you don't know where to start, that's okay. Start with the first word you are familiar with. Chances are, where you end up will give you some better keywords!

I clicked into the article that resulted, and did a quick scan. While I was interested in sexism, I didn't want to get into sexism as a whole for what was to be a short paper. So sexism wasn't the exact keyword I was looking for.

I scrolled a bit and ended up with "Gender Stereotypes". This was more along the lines of what I was looking for. I saw that Wikipedia has its own page concerning Sexism & Gender Stereotypes, so I decided to click into there.

You will notice a little number that looks like this [107] in the text on Wikipedia. If you hover your mouse over it, it will give a pop up of the cited source. If you click it, it will take you to the bottom of the page and highlight the information for you, and sometimes may even link you to the sourced article.

Find Credible Sources in Wikipedia
This information showed stuff I was interested in: sexism and the development of children. Whoever wrote this bit of information into Wikipedia sourced a study, and provided statistics from that study. That's usually a good sign that the source has some credible info in it. This info will usually be compiled information that comes from scientific studies and research, and is usually peer reviewed before it is published. Your professor is more likely to accept sources like these instead of Wikipedia articles or articles from a self published blog. So if you can back up what you read in a blog like the article I found on Scary Mommy, you CAN use that blog article.

Wikipedia and other editable sources can be added to this pyramid in the General Encyclopedia section. Usually, encyclopedias will compile information from other studies. You will want to get to those other studies. The closer you get to the bottom of this pyramid or the more specialized and authoritative sources, the more credible and useful they will be. Diagram source.

I was interested in this article from Wikipedia because it showed that it was published by the American Psychological Association, and they sounded pretty legit, so I copied the info I could from Wikipedia:

Fagot, Beverly I.; Leinbach, Mary D.; O'Boyle, Cherie (March 1992). "Gender labeling, gender stereotyping, and parenting behaviors".Developmental Psychology. American Psychological Association viaPsycNET. 28 (2): 225–230. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.28.2.225.

Use the Source to Search Databases
And went to my school's Library Website. You may need help from your Librarian in finding this on your school's website, but in the our Library section there is an Article Database that provides access to scholarly articles and journals for free.




That exact article popped up when I put the title of the study into the search bar, which was great! Sometimes it won't, but other articles that are similar will pop up. Either way, now you are on the road to using sources that are credible. You may also be able to use other information to search for this specific article, like the database number, but for keyword lists, let's just focus on the title. I clicked on the article and accessed the full online PDF. This will open the article in a window that you can read and select info and quotes from.




Add to Your Keyword List & Search the Database Again
This is awesome, but I wanted the information for the paper I was writing to be more current than 1992. However, this article provided me with more keywords that I used in my search. "Gender",  "Labeling",  and "Stereotypes" were added to my list, as well as "product development" and "toys". 

Sometimes starting with a keyword or phrase will have other helpful words or phrases pop up, and you can use them for your search.

Just typing in two terms, gender and toys, provided 455 articles!

Can't I Just Search Like I Would in Google?
So now you have your keywords. But why go through all this trouble anyway? Keyword searching is very effective for finding the articles you need in searches such as this. Try to avoid using phrases or searching with words that reflect how you speak. Some database searches focus specifically on keywords, and may be confused when we try to use it like Google.

When I tried to use a database search like Google and used the phrase, "what is it when a boy wears a princess dress", the database came up with articles that had nothing to do with my paper. It focused on the words "dress" and "princess"! While fashion design and learning about Princess Diana is important, these things do not help me with my search.

I selected a few articles that honed in on my paper about gender stereotyping in toys, and specifically, the negative words used to refer to girl's toys as bad, therefore deterring boys from playing with them.  I repeated the search again to reflect sexism in toys, as reflected in my choice of images for the cover page. I was able to write using information taken from actual studies, and related this issue to child development. 

Writing a paper isn't hard as long as you have some great sources on your side. Be sure to start early and compile a keyword list. Using keywords to search databases is half your battle. Be sure to site your sources correctly, and use in paper citations. If you are confused by any of this, go to your school library and talk with a Librarian. They are useful, knowledgeable, and awesome people who are there to help you, and can clarify anything I may have covered here.