Student Resources for Diverse, Equitable, & Inclusive Research (DEI)

Before you start searching for articles, think of your specific research question and the main ideas you plan to write about. This will help you identify search terms to use in the databases and make your search process more efficient.

Once you've identified the main ideas you plan to research, combine your search terms using AND to create a search string you can use in a database.

Formatting Your Searches

Boolean operators are words or symbols that tell library databases how to search. With Google, you can throw search terms at the search box and trust that Google's search rules and algorithms will take care of things. Library databases need you to type in the search rules along with the topics and subjects you're searching for.

"Quotation Marks"

Quotation marks are used to tell databases to search for words in a certain order. This is especially useful for finding titles or specific topics that can't be boiled down to a specific word:

• "attention deficit disorder"
• "minority stress model"

AND

This command tells the database to search for two or more words in article titles, topics, and abstracts.

• hiring AND diversity
• hiring AND diversity AND "best practices"

OR

This tool tells the database to find at least one of two or three words. This tool is the best way to search for synonyms without having to try an entire series of searches:

• autism OR neurodivergence
• women OR gender

As you can see from some of these examples, you can combine AND, OR, and the quotation marks in your searches. If you're going to use AND and OR in the same search, you do need to put part of the search in (parentheses). Without those parentheses around your synonyms and ORs, the databases will get confused about which rules to apply to which search terms:

• "online dating" AND (LGBTQ OR gay OR lesbian OR bisexual)
• (unhoused OR homelessness) AND ("mental health" OR "mental illness")

Finding diverse sources in the Fulton Library's databases isn't as hard as you might think. In fact, we have some databases that specialize in collecting articles and primary sources from underrepresented voices (see below). 

One simple thing you can do to add more diverse sources is to look closely at any subject tags or the terminology used in article abstracts to see who is included in the authors' research. For example, articles that appear in OneSearch will have additional topics listed after their citation information. These topics can give you a quick idea of what's included in an article.

Once you know what terms scholars and researchers use to talk about people from underrepresented groups, you can add these to your own searches. This takes the guesswork out of what terms you should use to boost the diversity of your research. 

Another thing you can do is read any limitations authors include in their articles. Limitations are usually included near the end of a scholarly article, with the discussion and conclusion sections. Authors may mention groups who were left out of their study and why, or call for additional research with a more diverse sample. Some things to watch for in the limitations sections are mentions of race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, age, disability, socioeconomic status, religion, and so on. 

If you notice that there are gaps in the research you've found so far—e.g. if you're looking for articles about best practices in teaching reading skills to elementary school students but don't see research that includes neurodivergent students—treat that as a clue to do another round of searching with some additional search terms to catch articles with more diverse groups of people involved.

Pro Tip: Even if the authors don't mention diversity or a lack of diversity in their limitations, it's still a good idea to read these sections anyway as you collect sources for your research projects. You want to make sure that a) you are using the strongest evidence for your argument that you can find and b) if you do find significant gaps in the available research, you're prepared to discuss them in your own paper. 

Recommended Databases

In the last few years, the Fulton Library has added tags to our online catalog that make it easier to find some types of diverse content. For example, if you see LGBTQIA Film and Literature appear on a detailed record page (click on a book or video title to see these), that means you've found something that's either created by a member of the LGBTQ+ community or that centers on the experiences of LGBTQ+ people. 

If you click on one of these subject tags, you'll get a full list of every item in the library with that tag. You can also do this with the tags listed in the subject line of the record (about halfway through this example).