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Research Guides

GGRB03: Writing Geography

This guide will help students in GGRB03 with finding scholarly and popular sources for your essay assignment on writing a personal story about a place you lived or visited.

Background Research

Written by scholars and librarians, Oxford Bibliographies Online introduces academic topics and lists their most influential or original articles. They are a great way to find key resources on your topic.

For example, you might look up topics like geographies of energy, environmental justice, renewable energy, indigenous ecologies, geographic vulnerability to climate change, indigenous rights and governance in Canada, or anthropogenic climate change to find relevant sources. 

Recommended eResources

Other databases

Search tips

Step by Step Searching Infographic

1.  AND:  write 'and' between different words to focus your search

 

   Example:  Search SARS and globalization and you'll only find articles with all of these terms.

 

2.  OR:  write 'or' between synonyms to expand your search

 

Example:  (SARS or "severe acute respitory syndrome")  will find articles with either of these terms.  It's important to include synonyms to ensure you find all articles relevant to your topic. For example, if you typed SARS but the article said severe acute respiratory syndrome, you would miss it if you didn't include the full name of the disease as a synonym.

 

3.  Truncation *:  Use truncation * to expand your search

 

   Example:  Globaliz* will find globalize, globalizing, and globalization.  

Use limiters to focus your search.  If you only want to find peer-reviewed articles, click peer-reviewed.  Do you need more recent articles?  Use the date limiter.