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Library DIY

I Do Not Know Which Items Are Relevant To My Topic

Not all of your search results will be relevant to your specific research question. Evaluate your results to decide what will be most useful. 

Looking at the citations in a database can help with this - they include information such as: the article title, journal title (or book title), publication date, subjects, and often an abstract (article summary).

  • Subjects: describe the article topic, can also be used to find other related sources
     
  • Abstract: short summary of the source. In many databases click on the title of the article or book to read the abstract

Screenshot of article citation in a library database: Check the title, date, abstract, subjects/keywords, look at the source type