Week 1 – Assignment: Explore the University Library
Instructions
In Week 4, you will articulate your personal clinical focus (PCF)(CHILD ABUSE, PREVENTION, EFFECTS OF ABUSE, FOR EXAMPLE DEPRESSION) for the course. You will do so with support from your faculty instructor and/or external experts. For this week’s assignment, begin thinking about a couple of presenting problems that you may like to become competent in treating (e.g., infidelity, bipolar disorder, relationship conflict, ADHD). In this week’s assignment, you will use the NCU Library to help you begin locating resources that will help you choose your PCF. Please note that your PCF must be congruent with your specialization (e.g., if your specialization is Therapy with Military Families, your PCF should relate to military families). In addition, you should also seek to locate resources for treating this presenting problem based on the approach to therapy that you articulated in 5104 and 5105.
Warm-up Activity 1: Getting acquainted with the NCU Library
Please consider the following facts about the NCU library:
NCU Library is a free service and available to you 24/7.
The University Library facilitates the research activities of University graduate and undergraduate Students, Alumni, Faculty and staff members. The University Library provides multiple opportunities to develop and expand information skills and resources to support student learning.
University holds a strong commitment to provide Students and Faculty Instructors with information literacy skills to enable them to make full and appropriate use of a wide variety of information resources. To this end, the following opportunities are available:
Learn the Library provides non-stop access to instruction on using databases and doing research.
The University Library website offers information and tutorials designed to familiarize students and instructors with University Library procedures and resources.
Warm-up Activity 2: Considering Information Literacy
Read the University Library page called Research Process and review various links and tutorials to prepare for using the library. Also, watch the video, Finding Empirical Research Articles. Links for resources are found in the Week 1 Books and Resources area.
As you go through the rest of this assignment, you will be asked to use the
University Library to locate books, articles, and other appropriate online resources about family therapy. For this purpose, it is necessary for you to identify a topic that you would like to learn more about relating to family therapy. You can choose a specific presenting problem (e.g., infidelity, ADHD, depression) or model of therapy (e.g., Bowen theory, narrative therapy), or even a life stage (e.g., parenting, premarital relationships). Before moving on with this activity, decide on a topic that you will look into as you search the Library. Then, as you search the Library and identify applicable resources, you will make a list of resources that you find. Be sure to capture the reference information for each resource in APA format. You will be required to submit a list of resources in correct APA format at the end of the activity.
Warm-up Activity 3: Learning about RefWorks:
In order to effectively capture and maintain all of the reference/resource information that is found in the Library and in other online resources, students are strongly encouraged to use RefWorks an online research management, writing, and collaboration tool. It is designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store, and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies. Go to the Popular Databases page in the
University Library and access RefWorks. See the FAQ for training resources on RefWorks, the link is in the Week 1 Books and Resources. It is well worth the time to access and learn to use this tool as it can be used throughout your scholastic career at
University. However, you should know that electronic tools like this are no guarantee that your references and in-text citations are 100% correct. It is still your responsibility to know the format for APA references and double-check content produced by these tools (helpful resources in this regard are the Purdue Owl site and the APA style blog, links available in the Books and Resources area):
Warm-up Activity 4: Evaluating Internet Research Sources
The Internet is a valuable tool, but you need to exercise caution when using it for scholarly research. Read the following guides to think critically about website information, links available in the Books and Resources area:
Website evaluation workshop. University Library
Research process: Website evaluation. University Library
Google Scholar is one web-based search engine you can use to locate research
Questions to Determine the Value and Validity of a Research Source
Download and utilize the Questions to Determine the Value and Validity of a Research Source Handout for this part of the assignment.
Author is an authority and unbiased: Is the author considered to be an expert or reputable scholar on the topic? Does the author have any professional views that could affect objectivity? Is the author affiliated with any special-interest groups? Does the author present alternate views and are those views portrayed fairly? Does the author’s language show signs of bias?
drafter reputation and authority: Is the drafter a respected source of academic scholarship? (Note: academic databases generally have a high standard of accountability and accuracy.) Does the drafter have any professional affiliations that could affect objectivity?
Date of Publication: Is the source new or old? If the source is older (more than five years), are there any newer sources that validate or invalidate this source? If the source is from the Internet, can the date of publication be accurately certified?
Primary and Secondary Sources: Is this the original (primary) source, or is this a secondary interpretation or description of the primary source? Would the primary source add more validity to your work?
Cross-reference: Is the source cited in other primary or secondary sources? How is this source used by other authors? Is the source respected and valued in the field?
Audience: Who is the source’s audience? Proponents or opponents? Other scholars? The general public?
Now that you have considered the types of sources you are seeking, you are ready to begin exploring the University Library
Main Task
This assignment involves a step-by-step process of exploring the University Library and many of the resources you have at University. Think of a possible topic that relates to the Personal Clinical Focus you will be identifying in Week 4. Using the steps provided below, find one reference in each of the following databases that addresses your topic of interest:
EBSCOhost PsycARTICLES
ProQuest Research Library
A third “Find an Article” database
PubMed
Google Scholar
From the University Learner Portal, select University Library. Then click on each of the links in the University Library home page to familiarize yourself with the library’s services. There are a variety of library tutorials in the Learn the Library link under the Research Help heading that you might find helpful. A good place to begin might be this introduction to using the library to find resources: Beginning the Research Process. When you have a general sense of what is available in the library, explore each of the tools and find resources to support your research topic.
Sometimes in the early stages of research you may not be sure of what will be useful. Something that seems a bit off-track may lead you ultimately to your destination.
View the tutorials under Research Help – Learn the Library – Student Orientation to learn more about various Library databases.
The University Library organizes article databases in two ways: 1) as a general listing, and 2) by discipline.
Go to the University Library home page and locate the Research Resources heading.
Click Databases to see the full database listing.
Locate the Research Resources heading. To see discipline-specific listings, click the Find an Article link.
Choose your discipline from the listing shown.
Search EBSCOhost PsycARTICLES
Go to the University Library home page and select Find an Article under the Research Resources heading; select Marriage & Family Sciences. Then select EBSCOhost PsycARTICLES.
From the Search screen, experiment with different search terms and techniques to find articles about your topic.
Record the searches you performed and the total number of hits for each search (e.g., “infidelity” – 29 hits; “infidelity and forgiveness” – 3 hits). You may find it helpful to use this Database Research Log. Remember to use the search techniques presented in the help screens. Email to yourself or print at least one or two articles on your topic.
When you find the best search strategy, set up an Alert. Above your search results is the Search History link. Click on Search History to reveal the Save Searches/Alerts link. You will be prompted to set up an account to save your Alerts. Schedule the Alert to be sent weekly or daily. You can choose to stop receiving Alerts after the end of the course or after any specific duration of time (e.g., one or two months). Enter your email address and click Save. This will set the system to send you an email in the future if any new articles are added to the database that fit the search strings that you used.
Search ProQuest Research Library
Go to the University Library home page and select Find an Article under the Research Resources heading; select Marriage & Family Sciences. Then select ProQuest Research Library.
From the Advanced Search screen, experiment with different search terms and techniques to find articles about your topic.
Record the searches you performed and the total number of hits for each search. Again, you may want to utilize the Database Research Log. The search terms and the number of records are available on the top of your search result page. Remember to use the search techniques presented in the help screens. Email to yourself or print at least one or two articles on your topic.
When you find the best search strategy, set up an Alert. Above your search results you will see a link that says “Create Alert”. You will see a dialog box with your search strategy. Schedule the Alert to be sent Weekly or Daily. You can choose to stop receiving Alerts after the end of the course or after any specific duration of time (e.g., one or two months). Enter your email address and click Save.
Search a Third University Database
Select a database that you have not yet tried in this course and repeat the same exercise that you did for EBSCOhost PsycARTICLES and ProQuest Research Library, selecting at least one article or other item of interest.
Search PubMed
PubMed has more than 24 million citations for the biomedical literature from MEDLINE, scientific journals, and online books. To learn about how to complete a search in PubMed, review the PubMed tutorial available in the resource section for this week.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic drafters, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research. If using Google Scholar, it is highly recommended that you link your Google Scholar account to University Library. Please see the NCU Library FAQ: Google Scholar for instructions.
Report on Your Findings
You will organize your write-up by the five databases/search engines:
EBSCOhost PsycARTICLES
ProQuest Research Library
A third “Find an Article” database
PubMed
Google Scholar
For each entry (a) list the reference in APA format, (b) comment on how easy or difficult it was to use that resource, (c) provide a 5-7 sentence summary of the article you found using that resource (be careful to appropriately paraphrase the material you use in your summary), and (d) describe in one-two sentences how this article will be helpful to you in articulating your personal clinical focus in Week 4.
Thus, your paper should look something like the following (note that you won’t need a reference list since you are citing each article):
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MFT5106 Assignment 1.2
Please note that the specific wording of the sample resposnes below is only a suggestion–please don’t use these exact words.
1a. PsycARTICLES
Smoller, J. W. (1985). The etiology and treatment of childhood. Journal of Polymorphous Perversity, 2(2), 3-7.
1b. I have used PsycARTICLES before. I find it easy to use because….
1c. The main purpose of this article was ____________. The main points the authors covered were……
1d. I was initially excited about finding this article, but after skimming it, I don’t think it will be as helpful for me because….
2. ProQuest Research Library
Shea, S. E., Gordon, K., Hawkins, A., Kawchuk, J., & Smith, D. (2000). Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood: a neurodevelopmental perspective on A.A. Milne. CMAJ, 163, 1557-1559.
1b. I have not used ProQuest before. One thing I liked about it was….
1c. The main purpose of this study was ____________. The main points addressed in this article were……
1d. I believe this article will be very helpful because of ….
Complete the rest similarly for the remaining four sources
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Length: 3-5 pages
**PLEASE TO READ & FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS THOROUGHLY. WE HAVE BEEN RECEIVING HALF FINISHED PAPERS**
