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Communication Sciences and Disorders: Research Help

Research guide and help center for students and faculty in the COSD department.

Research Help

Find some helpful information here about All Things Research. Use the tabs to navigate between topics. Contact your friendly librarian if you need help or have any questions. Make an appointment with the Writing Center to get assistance at any stage of your writing project.

All Things Research

APA Style

  • On this site, you will find tutorials, FAQs, and other resources to help you improve your writing, master APA Style, and learn the conventions of scholarly publishing.

The Purdue OWL: APA Style

  • These OWL resources will help you learn how to use the American Psychological Association (APA) citation and format style. This section contains resources on in-text citation and the References page, as well as APA sample papers, slide presentations, and the APA classroom poster.

RefWorks

  • TCU Library subscribes to RefWorks, which is software to manage footnotes, endnotes, citations, bibliographies, and works cited lists for papers. It allows users to create personal databases of references and citations. References are quickly and easily imported from text files or online databases. Once you set up your account, check out all the tutorials on how to use it.

EndNote

  • EndNote is a reference management software package used to manage bibliographies, references, and citations on your own computer. Click on the link, log in with your TCU username and password, follow downloading and installation instructions. Check out helpful tutorials.

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Use Boolean Operators to combine your keyword (when using the databases. It also works great when using Google) :

AND - narrows the search

OR - broadens the search

NOT - first term is searched, then results with second term are eliminated

      

Use Truncation (*) to broaden your search and include various word endings and spellings.

Examples:

  • child* = child, children, childhood, childlike, childish
  • hear* = hear, hearing, heart, hearsay

Always evaluate your sources (online or in print) for CRAAP :

  • Currency
    • When was the information published? Is it current? Up-to-date?
  • Relevance
    • Does the information relate to your topic? Who is the intended audience?
  • Authority
    • What are the author's credentials? Organizational affiliations? Is the author qualified to write on this topic? 
  • Accuracy
    • Is the information supported by evidence? Can you verify it from another source? Are there typos, spelling, grammatical errors?
  • Purpose
    • Is the information fact, opinion, propaganda? Does the author make his/her intentions/purpose clear?

Writing Center

OWL

   Check out the Writing Center:

  • Tutorials by trained  writing consultants
  • Assistance at any stage of the writing project
  • Offering feedback
  • Online or in-person help