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Research Guides

MAT198: Cryptology - The Mathematics of Secrecy and Security

REMEMBER - Scholarly Articles

What makes an article scholarly?

  • Academic Article - Are there in-text citations and references listed in bibliography? 
  • Newspaper Article - Does the article include interviews with experts and clearly identify facts? 
  • Do the authors have expertise?  (e.g., affiliation to an academic institution or recognized organization, academic credentials)
  • Use RADAR criteria (Rationale, Authority, Date, Accuracy, Relevance) to assess if the research is reliable and scholarly. 

Tips for Building your Search

Choosing your Search Terms

Enter search terms on separate lines to instruct the database to search for the combined terms.  Boolean Operators (AND, OR, NOT) are useful tools for building your search:

  • Quotations marks (search for specific phrases or names)

    • "Alan Turing", "Advanced Encryption Standard""data protection" 

  • Asterisk * (widen your search results) 

    • cryptolog* = cryptologists, cryptologist, cryptologycryptolography

  • AND (narrows your search)
    • cryptography AND "facial recognition"

    • encryption AND math*

  • OR (widens your search)

    • cryptography OR cryptanalysts OR cryptosystem

    • military OR armies OR army

    • email OR e-mail

ProQuest Database

ProQuest  

ProQuest is a platform containing over 100 databases. ProQuest contains publications (i.e., newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, eBook titles, dissertation and theses) in different subjects areas including film. Remember you might find content in a non-film related resource from your time period, (i.e., newspapers, business or tech magazines).

 

1) Use the Advanced Search Tool  

screen shot of ProQuest Advance Search box

 

2) Sort your Results 

  • Sort your results (Relevance, Date) 
    • Sort by Date: It may be useful to arrange the results chronologically (oldest first) in order to follow the entire production process of a particular film, from gossip about potential stars to reviews and box-office grosses.

 

3) Using ProQuest Search Filters

  • Narrow your search results using filters on left sidebar:
    • Peer Review: Click the checkbox and examine journals with peer review editing process (papers are send to experts to assess and provide feedback to the author) 
    • Source TypeScholarly Journals, Book Chapter, eBook
    • Publication TitleInternational Journal of Information Security‎, Annals of the History of Computing
    • Document Type: Feature, Front Page/Cover Story, Article, Literature Review (avoid Review and Editorial)

 

4) Mark relevant records

If you find interesting articles, be sure to . 

  • Go to the results page and click the check box to the left of the article title  
  • When you are ready to email the articles to yourself, scroll to the top of the results list and click on Email link (on right side)
  • Email the marked records to yourself 

Another option is to create a free ProQuest MyResearch account.