Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
Chapter 4: You Could Look It Up: Reading, Recording,
and Reviewing Research
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. In bibliographic research, what do the letters “doi” stand for?
a. document object identifier
b. document object information
c. digital object identifier
d. digital object information
2. A thorough review of the communication research literature will help you with
which of the following?
a. participant recruitment
b. financial backing
c. language and style
d. other methods of citation
3. Which of the following will help you decide whether a research report has
scholarly credibility?
a. author’s credentials
b. publication city
c. length
d. citation style
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
4. Which of the following will help you decide if a website is publishing scholarly
credible information?
a. how quickly it loads
b. information about how page content is accepted or rejected
c. absence of contact information
e. the web page color
5. Which of the following is TRUE of a scholarly article?
a. It is refereed.
b. It is in weekly media.
c. It is targeted to a lay audience.
d. It is found in a newspaper.
6. Researchers should be familiar with Library of Congress Subject Headings
(LOCSH) because ______.
a. it is a federal requirement for research
b. the headings provide official spelling for search terms
c. the headings give you a variety of different search terms for the same topic
d. the headings show you how to format a paper
7. AND, OR, and NOT are called ______ operators.
a. logarithmic
b. Bodleian
c. Boolean
d. numeric
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
8. Which of the following are all Boolean operators?
a. and, or, then
b. and, or, when
c. and, or, not
d. or, then, when
9. Which of the following details come first in a citation of a journal article in your
scholarly writing?
a. author names
b. date of publication and volume and issue number of the journal
c. page numbers
d. title of journal article
10. What does APA, the style used in writing up much communication research,
stand for?
a. American Publishers Association
b. American Philosophical Association
c. American Psychological Association
d. Academic Publishing Association
11. Styles commonly used for formatting communication research papers include
______.
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
a. APA, MLA, and ALA
b. APA, MLA, and New York
c. APA, MLA, and Chicago
d. APA, MBA, and New York
True/False
1. In searching the scholarly literature, “relevance” and “quality” mean the same.
2. A “search term” and a “search field” are the same.
3. A document object identifier (doi) is a permanent Internet identification for a
document.
4. You should do research without first seeing what other researchers have done
in your field.
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
5. Scholarly publication articles are peer-reviewed and use citations.
6. A good literature review will assist you in choosing a method that is
appropriate for your study.
7. A good literature review can help ensure your research study is ethical.
8. “Relevance” and “quality” are two goals of a literature search for your study.
9. Finding relevant information in communication research is dependent on using
appropriate search terms.
10. Using the search term “communication” is often useful in literature searches
in communication research.
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
11. Peer-reviewed articles are likely to be high-quality studies.
12. Peer-reviewed and refereed journal articles are the same.
13. Research results from database searches are generally highly credible.
14. Scholarly databases have more sophisticated interfaces than search engines
do.
15. Since databases are specialized by content, you can often focus your
literature search by which database you choose.
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
16. The impact factors of a journal measure the number of times those articles
are cited by other researchers.
17. Journals with a low impact factor are seen as influential in their field.
18. Catalogs, dictionaries, and handbooks can be useful resources as you
search the literature.
19. A good way to determine credibility of a website is to treat it like a book or
journal article: know who wrote it, their credentials, and who published it.
20. Books and journals published by a university press are unbiased.
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
21. It is useful to know the criteria by which a website accepts or rejects articles.
22. It is not necessary to record the complete bibliographic information when
doing a literature search.
23. A good literature review includes summary, synthesis, analysis, and critique.
24. Citation management software can help keep a researcher organized by
interfacing with library databases.
25. One way to review literature includes treating it like journalism—asking
questions of who, what, where, when, why, and how.
26. A literature review is just a summary of relevant, quality literature in your
research area.
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
27. A pro–con argument is useful for structuring the literature when academics
don’t agree about the topic.
28. Chicago style is the most common citation style in the social sciences.
29. The American Psychological Association (APA) style is the most common
citation style in the social sciences.
30. Reading research will assist you in developing your research writing skills.
31. One useful way to find a “breakthrough” paper that clarifies concepts is to do
a thorough, systematic search.
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
32. Communication & Mass Media Complete is an example of a search engine.
33. Google and Bing are examples of search engines.
34. The impact factor of a journal is more important than the relevance of the
article to your study.
35. Popular articles are published without a peer-review process.
36. Scholarly articles include citations at the end of the article.
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
Essay
1. Explain with examples the difference between primary and secondary sources.
2. Identify one example of a database and one example of a search engine and
explain the differences between them.
3. Explain the difference between the concepts of “relevant information” and
“quality information.”
4. What questions you would ask to determine if a book or journal was written to
scholarly standards? Why would asking these questions be important?
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
5. Explain what is meant by popular articles and trade publications, and how they
differ from scholarly journal articles.
6. What are advantages to reading others’ research before beginning your own?
7. How do you determine what qualifies as quality information in your literature
search?
Instructor Resource
Treadwell and Davis, Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2020
8. Why is it useful to record the method and results of the literature you find?
9. Why is it important to accurately cite articles and resources you use in your
literature review?