Students - use these tutorials as a quick and easy way to learn about general methods and strategies of research, or about a particular resource. Faculty - use these tutorials as a quick primer for your students to learn skills that you can build on in a lesson or assignment.
General
Copyright and Fair Use Covers the basics of copyright, why copyright is important and the fair use exception to copyright.
Visual Literacy Defines visual literacy and covers searching for and selecting images and understanding the rights and restrictions governing the use of images.
Creating an Effective Search Strategy This video explains how to identify search terms to create online searches that return concise results more relevant to your investigation.
Is This Article Scholarly This video defines and describes how to locate scholarly materials.
Introduction to Primo This video explains how to use Primo, the Libraries' search tool for finding relevant articles, books and other materials on any topic.
Choosing a Database Describes three approaches to identifying Purdue Libraries' resources containing sources to support your information need.
Selecting Information Describes the differences between various types of information sources that can be used for academic and personal purposes.
How to Read a Scientific Paper Explains the elements of a scientific paper and how it can be useful to your research.
Two Minute Tips Very brief tutorials on specific topics such has how to find full text journal articles or how to search Tests in Print. Each tutorial is limited to 2-5 minutes and includes an audio track along with the screen shots. Written for graduate students, but useful to all students and faculty.
Boolean Operators Using Boolean operators will help you focus and control the results of your database search. This short tutorial will help you understand the best way to use Boolean operators!
Biology
Tutorials for Biology Students Searching the Scientific Literature A series of tutorials to help students become better finders and users of information in general, and scientific information in particular. The tutorials use biology examples, like PubMed and Web of Science, and are useful for students of other sciences.
Education
Tutorials for Education Students Searching the Literature A series of seven interactive tutorials to help COE students at all levels become better finders and users of information in general, and journal literature in particular. The tutorials provide a framework of the research process by starting with an explanation of publication cycles – how scholarly information is published – and then provides specific information on how to use key words and subject headings (descriptors) to do an online search. Although the tutorials use education examples from ERIC and Education FT, they are useful for students of other social sciences. Total time to complete all modules is about 1 ½ hours.