Food Systems

Organize your thoughts...

Peer Review in Three Minutes

Take this 5-minute quiz.

Plagiarism is misrepresenting somebody else's intellectual work - ideas, information, writing, thinking - as your own. In other words, it is a misuse of source material. Plagiarism is a serious violation of the UMass Amherst Academic Honesty Policy.

Wondering about the viability of a source? RADAR stands for Rationale, Accuracy, Date, Authority, Relevance.

When searching in a library database...

SUBJECT SEARCHING searches specific, standardized subject headings assigned to materials. A subject search limits your search to an exact word or an exact combination of words.

Advantage: Subject searching retrieves exactly what you ask for.
Disadvantage: Subject searching limits you to only what you ask for.

 KEYWORD SEARCHING retrieves any and all occurrences of a word or combination of words, whether the words appear in the subject headings, title, or description of the item.

Advantage: Keyword searching expands the search to all occurrences of a word or combination of words.
Disadvantage: Keyword searching may retrieve much more than you want.

Type phrases in quotes.

Use the Advanced Search option to limit by date, language, domain, etc.

Use Google Scholar to retreive more academic sources.

Configure Google Scholar to import references into RefWorks (for citation management):
1. Select Scholar Preferences Link from the selections next to the Search Window.
2. Near the Bottom of the Screen click the radio button next to "Show links to import citations into" and choose "Refworks" from the drop-down menu.
3. Click "Save Preferences."

Pick from this series of short library videos to learn more about the research process.