Research Methods in EconomicsECO 4132

Linda HauckSpring, 2010

Objectives

• Literature Review– Select resource discovery tools– Thoroughly search them– Obtain text of books & articles

• Find Data & Statistics– Statistical & data indices– Data consideration: source, format, series

• Create a Bibliography– Refworks

Literature Review: Document Types

• Books Catalog, Worldcat, GoogleBooks, EZBorrow

• Scholarly Journal Articles specific editorial model, peer reviewed, referred

• Working Papers Informal publication, grey literature, scholarly drafts

The Literature Review

Finding books

Literature Review

Finding article databases: Subject Guides, Databases A-Z, Course & Topic Guides

Literature Review: Search Techniques

• Synonyms, related terms

• Controlled vocabulary, JEL Classification

• Truncation or phrase searching

• Field searching

• Boolean AND OR

Literature Review: EconLit

Health insurance impact on employment

Literature Review: Search Techniques

Literature Review: Chasing Citations & Getting Full Text

Author, A. (year). Title article. Title Periodical. Vol#, pp-pp. Retrieved from electronic source.

• Findit button• E-Journals A-Z/Catalog• Interlibrary Loan • Dissertations & Theses• NBER Working Papers

.

Citation Management with RefWorks

1. Why use citation management software?

2. Create account3. Add a reference4. Export reference from

database

5. Create folder

6. Create bibliography

7. Share references

8. Write N Cite

Statistics & Data Considerations

• Form (print, pdf, xls, SAS, zip, SPSS)

• Harmonized, comparability

• Scope, frequency, units

• Method, metadata

Finding Statistics & Data

• Leverage data from literature review

• Use indices or directories or search engine

• Keyword/Drill down searching

• Check method/Metadata

Final Tips

• Allow time for exploration & interlibrary loan or EZBorrow

• Search systematically, but hope serendipity is on your side.