online one-stop for:graduate Students

Introduction

Need library research help? You have come to the right place! Don't see a connection to what you are looking for and need, email us so we can add resources for you.

Situation Needs

For graduate students, the Marriott Library provides both refresher as well as advanced level support for library research. In addition we provide support for research methods, qualitative research tools, and funding research. Visit the Graduate School site for a collection of valuable resources such as Grammarly and a professional development tool for the Humanities and Social Science ImaginePhD as well as professional development tool for science graduate students called the IDP for planning for science careers after the PhD.

Strategies & Skills

General Research

General Research

Library Research Refresher

Boolean searching is important to help you focus your search
Request articles, books, protocols, and more through Interlibrary Loan for FREE
Create alerts for your research topic(s). These alerts will send you the latest publications and keep you current on the field.
We may have additional databases relevant to your discipline compared to your undergraduate university. Browse our databases by subject or alphabetical list or contact your subject specialist for suggestions.
- Some of our favorite database starting points are:
  - Academic Search Ultimate,
  - Scopus, (watch videos of an example search here)
  - Web of Science

Advanced Searching Skills

Dissertation & Thesis Help

Dissertation & Thesis Help

Doing a thesis or dissertation is a time consuming process. Here are some resources and tips to help you get started and stay on track until your defense.

What does a dissertation entail you ask? Check out a graduate student dissertation guide Online versions for the: Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences
An E-book: Writing a Proposal for Your Dissertation: Guidelines and Examples
Another E-book: The Productive Graduate Student Writer : A Guide to Managing Your Process, Time, and Energy to Write Your Research Proposal, Thesis, and Dissertation, and Get Published

Getting Organized to Do Research

Look at dissertations in the Proquest Dissertation Database. You can search by topic, discipline, and even down to your U of U department or dissertation advisor if you use the advanced search features
Develop a plan
- Gather tools or learn tools if needed (ex. citation management tools)
- Decide on way to track and journal your progress
- Use a timeline tool like Trello or Gnatt Charts or Bullet Journal
  - An Academic Bullet Journal
- Sign up for the Dissertation Bootcamp over fall and/or spring breaks
Set Goals - you have options for articulating goals:
- SMART goals
- OKRs (Objectives & Key Results )
Develop a rough timeline for major library research projects (Abbott's Timeline)
Set realistic expectations
- How many pages do you need for the intro chapter? Try searching for dissertations by faculty in your department and/or your advisor/hopeful advisor in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Find existing protocols & validated survey instruments with Springer Experiments and HAPI: Health & Psychosocial Instruments. The library can buy industry standards for you too.
Have flexibility and avoid the meltdown
- Some humor to help with stress - PhD Comic and the PhD movies (Links to an external site.)

Preliminary Exploration

Explore topics
- Concept Map topics (CMap) and Concept Mapping LibGuide
Do preliminary searching (Google Scholar, in your disciplinary journals or databases)
Draft research questions (George Mason U - guide on writing research questions)
Think about research methods and protocols beforehand. Has someone created a validated survey for this topic? Is there an existing protocol for this experiment?

Jump in and Do Research

Gathering and evaluating sources
- Check out this guide to learn how to determine if a journal is peer-reviewed
Annotating sources (annotations research guide) and writing research questions (resource)
Starting to craft a literature review? Doing a literature review resources (links to a powerpoint, tips & tools, handouts, and literature help websites)
- Citation formatting
  - APA 7th edition tutorial and APA manual instructional aids

Writing Strategies

Set aside time for writing (Inside higher education article)
Tips for organizing your writing
- The Pat Thomson's blog , the Thesis Whisperer and Raul Pacheco-Vega's blog provides resources for graduate students writing dissertations and theses
Help from the graduate writing center
Connecting with the thesis office

Tools & Tutorials

Tools & Tutorials

This research guide (Links to an external site.) will help you to chose a citation management tool. They all are FREE and do the same thing, but depending on your discipline or needs you may prefer one over the other

Zotero tutorial by Rebekah Cummings, Digital Matters Librarian (rebekah.cummings@utah.edu )

- APA 7th edition resources
- Grammarly license - graduate students have access to a free license (software information)
Qualitative research training and support
- Qualitative research support is available with 2 librarians who can help with learning NVivo and Atlas.ti
Pivot training for finding funding
Scholarly profile and publication metrics training

TA Teaching Support

TA Teaching Support

If you are teaching as a TA and your course has a research assignment we can help with designing and teaching library research assignments
We can also come into your class (through zoom or in person) and provide an introduction to library research for your students
We can create Canvas page tutorials that can be uploaded into your course
We can also be enrolled in your Canvas course as a TA and monitor a Library Research FAQ discussion board

Support & People

We're here to help!

Planning Research

Planning Research

Don't Know where to Start?

Librarians can help you get started by:
- Providing an overview or refresher about library resources
- Recommending databases and tools
- Connecting you to the Proquest Dissertation & Thesis Database
- Provide updates on changes and new features in the library catalog
Sign up for the Dissertation Bootcamp over fall and/or spring breaks (we will be thinking about how to hold this event in the time of COVID-19 - stay tuned!)

Getting Organized

Getting Organized

Gathering Sources

There are librarians for any discipline - check the librarian subject specialist list to find out who your librarian is
Find a book as you are doing your research that the Library does not own and need for your research? You can order it through Suggest a Purchase and be the first one to read it when it comes in. Need a book during the COVID shutdown?
directions here for finding and requesting a mailed book
ILL can get those hard to find articles and also books for you

Accessing Software & Tools

The Knowledge Commons can help you find and access software if the university owns a campus license and can help with getting it installed
The tech experts at the Knowledge Commons can help you trouble shoot problems, they can print a poster for you and connect you to the 3D printing experts
Hook you up with free Microsoft Office and Adobe software

Developing a Plan & Stay Organized

Develop a plan for doing research that includes how you will track resources you find, how you can manage your time, and how you can stay organized
- Create a calendar for deadlines
- Use an Excel spreadsheet to track articles

Doing Research

Doing Research

What do you do with all the resources you are collecting?
- Use U Box for PDFs
- Here is more detailed information on each tool: Endnote Basic (Links to an external site.), Mendeley (Links to an external site.) and Zotero
- Summarizing and Paraphrasing
- Keep an annotated bibliography of your sources
- Write a literature review - check out these resources to help you with that

Disseminating Research

Disseminating Research

The library can help with posters and presentations as you think about disseminating your research.
The Marriott Library copyright librarian, Allyson Mower, can help you check copyrights on images you might want to use in your dissertation
Review and/or read Allyson Mower's book recommendations: Seven Great Books About Scholarly Publishing
Check Pivot for travel scholarships and fellowships

SELF

Surviving the Dissertation

Surviving the Dissertation

Some challenges identified in the literature for graduate students are time management, isolation, feelings of imposter syndrome and managing the dissertation committee - relationships, communication, and expectations. Need help? Contact the UofU Counseling Center

Time Management of the Process

Once you have developed a research topic and done some preliminary searching to explore literature related to your topic, the next step is to make a rough timeline for your dissertation or thesis. Even if this timeline changes dramatically, having a plan in mind can help you set goals to make sure you are on track. Here are some key points to remember:

Make reasonable estimates of how long you expect each phase of the plan to take: Although it would be wonderful if you could write your dissertation proposal in two weeks, this probably is not realistic. If you aren't sure what is realistic, try talking to your advisor or other students about how much time they allot.
Be prepared to make changes: Shifts in timing happen for a variety of reasons; request for revisions, delays in data analysis, or just ordinary life getting in the way. Instead of getting upset, try to be flexible about your timeline. If you are stuck and aren't sure what to do, connect with your advisor to get some advice.
Keep a journal of your progress: Although keeping a journal may sound like extra work, keeping brief notes of your progress and your decisions and choices can help you see and remember the progress you have made. It also keeps you from forgetting good ideas you may have for different phases of the process.

Here are some additional resources that may be useful to you when developing a research plan:

Counting Down to #Thesis Completion: This blog post by Professor Pat Thomson provides suggestions on approximately how much time each portion of your thesis or dissertation process will take.

Rally Your Resources: Check out this Gradhacker post by Grady Krien about how to think through the resources you will need to finish your writing.

Keeping a Reading Journal: This blog post by Professor Pat Thomson provides advice on how to create a reading journal throughout your thesis or dissertation to keep track of the literature you will read and review

Anticipating Tasks and Timings: This blog post by Professor Pat Thomson offers some suggestions for key elements in the writing process that should be considered when developing a research plan.

Reverse-Planning (Backcasting) a Paper: This post by Professor Raul Pacheco-Vega describes his strategies for working backward to plan how much time he will need for a research project.

My Yearly Planning Process Through the Everything Notebook: In this post, Professor Raul-Pacheco Vega explains how he organizes his time and schedule as an academic. Some of his strategies may be useful to you as you make your plan for writing and research.

Four Strategies to Help Build an Academic Writing Routine: One important element in developing a research plan is thinking through how you will write. This blog post by Professor Raul Pacheco-Vega offers some suggestions on how to develop a daily writing practice.

Isolation

Need help? Contact the UofU Counseling Center
Graduate school prepared me to self-quarantine (Chronicle Vitae article)
One possible solution (post-COVID) 2Xs a year: Join other grad students at the Marriott Library for Dissertation and Thesis Boot Camp. Over fall and spring break you get free breakfast and conversation and you can dedicate time to writing, or analyzing data, or formatting your dissertation. Stay tuned for registration announcement this fall!

Impostor Syndrome

Common academic experiences no one talks about (rejection, impostor syndrome, and burnout (Scholarly article in Perspectives on Psychological Science)
We are not impostors (Inside Higher Education article)
APA article - Feel like a fraud?
Impostor syndrome is definitely a think (Chronicle article)

Stress and Committee Relationships

The not-so-secret guide to dissertating (Chronicle vitae article)
Dissertation roadblocks (APA article)
When committee members disagree (GradHacker)

Career Prep

Career Prep

Academia vs non-academic Jobs

Academic careers you may not have considered (Inside HE article)
An academic's guide to getting an non-academic job (blog post)

Work-Life Balance

Work-Life Balance

Health

A very mixed record on grad student mental health (Inside Higher Education article)
Work-life balance is very important for college students, especially non-traditional students with families and/or working jobs
- UMatch - a bulletin board to find childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic
U of U Wellness exercise videos (Links to an external site.)
Read about the relationship of stress reduction and exercise
Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework (Links to an external site.). Journal of environmental psychology, 15(3), 169-182. (an article that has been cited over 4,500 times and counting)
Identify implicit bias - take quizzes (Links to an external site.) and read the book Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People (Links to an external site.)
Explore the Leisure Studies journal (Links to an external site.) to look at the variety of topics that constitute 'leisure'
23 healthy foods (Links to an external site.)everyone should know how to cook

Problem or Question? Need a librarian? Contact Us