Virtually all of the resources you regularly use online are giant databases. Google is a database with links to material stored on web sites. Facebook is a social media site with a database you search to find friends or people with particular characteristics. The library digital catalog has a database that will help you locate resources the library has available or database services it subscribes to.
Completing any information task will require skilled knowledge about how to locate and use databases with the kinds of information that will help answer your questions.
But remember, it starts with the questions. No one clicks on Google and thinks, “I’m going to search the topic ‘Google’.” Instead, you click on Google with a clearly defined topic that you need to research, and an information task you must accomplish. This will help you create a question to answer which will inform how to structure your search query.
For example – if the topic you need to learn about is “food insecurity” there may be a number of tasks:
Task: Get a clear idea of the definition of the term
Question: What does “food insecurity” mean?
Search: “food insecurity” AND definition
Task: Need experts or people involved in the area that I can talk with
Question: Are there any associations that deal with “food insecurity”?
Search: “food insecurity” AND association
Task: Get data that can help me understand the scope of the issue
Question: How many people are affected by “food insecurity”?
Search: “food insecurity” AND statistics
We understand that students these days believe they know how to search just fine, thank you very much. But the ease of “Googling” makes it easy to be a lazy and uninspired researcher. Just relying on doing a Google search without understanding and exploring the vastly rich and diverse search resources available will prevent you from becoming a truly inspired, clever, and resourceful researcher.
And this is what employers are looking for. In a survey in 2013, 93% of the 318 employers surveyed by Hart Research Associates for the Association Of American Colleges And Universities said what they most highly value in a new hire is “a candidate’s demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems.”
Honing your search skills requires all three of those capacities.
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