GRA Ready: Health Sciences Research Assistantships

Start with a research plan to stay organized from the beginning! A suggested flow of research activities here:

1. Set up a citation manager before you begin, to save and sort your research findings. The GSU Library supports Zotero and EndNote.
2. If you have key articles or recommended resources from your faculty from the beginning, follow up with Citation Mining and Cited Reference Searching to locate more resources in the same academic conversation. 
3. Identify key databases to search for more information on your subject. Note any databases used in the Methods sections of review articles you may have seen, and explore GSU subscription databases for the subject areas covered in your topic. (Use the drop-down at the top of Databases A-Z to select multiple subjects.)
4. Create a search in each database for your topic. Each database is different in how it will understand a search string - make an appointment with your librarian for assistance in building a comprehensive search! You may get additional useful information from resources like data sets, statistics, and grey literature.
5. Conduct your database searches - focusing on title/abstract/methods skimming, not deep reading - and save promising resources to your citation manager as you go.
6. Review the resources in your citation manager to read them more fully, and delete the items that didn't provide the information you need after all, leaving a folder of relevant findings for you and your faculty. 

Document your searches as you go, to organize your efforts and refer to your previous search strategies. Include elements like

• Date of search
• Database name - Be specific! EBSCO Ageline; ProQuest Health & Medical Collection; etc.
• Search string - Look for a copy/paste-able search string in the database under Search History or Advanced Search options.
• Link to search - Use the URL in the address bar in PubMed, or look for a Permalink/Stable URL in other databases to link back to the search. 
• Number of results - A record of the number of results can help you see at a glance which databases had more or less content for you, and illustrates changes in future versions of the search.
• Notes - Did you notice anything unusual about your results? Patterns in content? A difference in how you had to change your search for this particular database? Leave this space for any other comments or clarifications. 

If you have trouble finding the correct database name, search string, or permalink, ask your librarian for assistance.
Use the template below to get started with your documentation (includes examples):