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Librarian
Hannah Rempel
Subjects: Agricultural Sciences,
Animal Sciences,
BioResource Research,
Botany and Plant Pathology,
Crop and Soil Science,
Entomology,
Environmental & Molecular Toxicology,
Fisheries, Wildlife & Conservation Sciences,
Food Science and Technology,
Horticulture,
Microbiology,
Rangeland Sciences
Where should I look for sources?
Questions to guide your background literature search
- What is the main idea?
- What kind of research has been done on this topic?
- What do I need to learn more about?
- What language or special terms do people use to describe this topic?
- Do I know what all of this language means? (if no – look it up)
- Is there current research on my topic?
- Is this topic still under discussion?
- Is there enough here for me to keep going?
Questions to guide your search for stakeholder perspectives
- Who are the stakeholders? What organizations do they belong to?
- What kind of arguments do they use?
- What concerns do they have?
- What evidence do they use to back up their arguments?
- Have they used legal means to try to make changes?
Questions to ask about methods
- What method do they describe?
- How and where do they do the testing – in vivo/in vitro, observational, in a lab, in a greenhouse, in the field?
- What are the research questions – what are they observing? E.g., human behaviors, plant disease response, ecosystem-level changes
- What large is the sample size?
Questions to ask about data
- What are they describing overall, is this a reasonable way to get at that information (e.g., greenhouse studies, observational studies)?
- How are they presenting the data?
- Does this data make sense based on the methods used?
- How does this specific information relate to your larger questions?
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