After you've read a high-level overview of your topic in an encyclopedia, you can use the keywords you found to locate books and ebooks that take a more in-depth, thorough look at that topic. Whereas encyclopedias must cover a large variety of subjects, scholarly books tend to have a very narrow focus, allowing the authors to provide a more nuanced and precise take on a subject.
Scholarly books are not written like popular novels, where to understand the fifth chapter, you need to have read the first through fourth chapters. When reading a scholarly book, you'll notice that some sections may be more relevant to your studies than others. When working with this kind of text, it's OK to jump around or narrow your focus to one or two chapters that specifically address your research.
In the library catalog, you will find print books, ebooks, videos and more. Use keywords in the search box above to find relevant materials. Selecting advanced search will show multiple search boxes and allow you to filter results right away. This is helpful if you need items that are more current (filter by year range), or if you need physical books (select material type), etc.
Subject headings are found in the records for items; these are the main ideas and main topics of that resource. If you find one that matches your research topic, you can click the subject heading link to see every item in the catalog that shares that main idea. Please note, the subject headings are predefined and set in the system. All words and punctuation must be duplicated exactly, so it's hard to guess at a matching subject heading. The best way to use these is to locate a book or source that looks useful, and click the headings from within that description!
After you've read a high-level overview of your topic in an encyclopedia, you can use the keywords you found to locate books and ebooks that take a more in-depth, thorough look at that topic. Whereas encyclopedias must cover a large variety of subjects, scholarly books tend to have a very narrow focus, allowing the authors to provide a more nuanced and precise take on a subject.
Scholarly books are not written like popular novels, where to understand the fifth chapter, you need to have read the first through fourth chapters. When reading a scholarly book, you'll notice that some sections may be more relevant to your studies than others. When working with this kind of text, it's OK to jump around or narrow your focus to one or two chapters that specifically address your research.
