The Bedford Researcher -- Chapter 8 Summary

Chapter 8 of The Bedford Researcher, titled Searching for Information with Digital Resources (SIDR), explores and demonstrates the most effective strategies to finding digital sources that correlate with the reader's topic. Such strategies include going over a research plan, identifying key words and phrases, planning basic searches, and identifying search terms. Within these strategies, there are things that the reader should also take into consideration, such as adding key words, searching for exact phrases, planning advanced searches, focusing searches with Boolean operators, and limiting searches to documents that have particular characteristics. Chapter 8 guides the reader into becoming a researcher, taking he/she through clear, step-by-step instructions that make the process of research easy and enjoyable, rather than frustrating and taxing. With great detail, SIDR gives the reader the correct tools to search for sources with online library catalogs. These tools include searching by author, searching by title, searching with multiple strategies, identifying relevant databases, and searching news and information databases. Furthermore, Chapter 8 very skillfully provides the reader with the necessary knowledge to searching for sources with Web search sites: identifying relevant web search sites, using web directories, using deep web search sites and directories, using meta search sites, and using reference search sites. Chapter 8 is the starting point to effectively using professional research strategies. It's a necessary chapter in The Bedford Researcher that provides a wealth of helpful knowledge that would be a shame to overlook.