Fuller Theological Seminary

Reference services are available to assist McAlister library patrons in their research, including assistance in research strategy, identifying and obtaining material, providing referrals to other libraries, and aid in utilizing electronic and print resources. Reference assistance is available at the reference desk on the 1st floor of McAlister Library or by email or phone. Hours are generally the following, but may vary:

Appointments for complex projects or tutorials, especially for PhD students, are encouraged and available.

Help with research	For help with your research, phone or email Reference Services
Workshops	To find out more about library workshops being offered, including scheduling and registration, please visit the Workshops web page
Research Strategies and writing Research Papers	This syllabus guides graduate students through the process of writing a research paper and offers helpful instructions on using library catalogs, online databases, and the internet, for doing graduate level research. http://www.acts.twu.ca/LBR/research500.htm. This online textbook on Research Strategies is very helpful: http://www.acts.twu.ca/lbr/textbook.htm or one can purchase the full textbook. Writing research essays in North American academic institutions http://www.acts.twu.ca/lbr/research_essays.htm is a guide for students of all nations, for help with what "research" means in a North American context. Both sites above were written by William Badke, Associate Librarian at Trinity Western University with primary responsibility for information resources and research training at Associated Canadian Theological Schools. Here's basic tutorial on writing research papers developed by Purdue University writing center: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/genre.html
Formatting Footnotes	Chicago Manual of Style online is helpful for style rules about formatting footnotes, bibliographies, etc. EndNote is software Fuller students may download to help organize and format bibliographies and footnotes. CiteSBLHS is free software for bibliographies and footnotes from the Society for Biblical Literature.
Online Tutorials for using Databases	A video tutorial about EBSCO PsycINFO developed by William Badke: https://dspace.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/1880/43721/6/PsycINFO.swf A text tutorial for Old Testament Abstracts and New Testament Abstracts developed by Union-PSCE seminary library: http://gargoyle.union-psce.edu/tutorial/welcome/EBSCO/EBSCOA.htm
Reference guides	A brief guide to finding dissertations at Fuller and beyond
Articles in electronic full-text	Fuller subscribes to Full-text databases, with tens of thousands of high quality articles. Databases These articles are NOT available on the open web, that is you cannot find them by searching Google. For first time off campus users here is Help with remote access.
E-books	Fuller subscribes to e-book databases such as NetLibrary and IPreach. The NetLibrary and TREN e-books can also be found in the online catalog.
Free online documents	There are various free sources on the web. It's important to consider the quality of the sources: who wrote it and what are their qualifications? when was it written? is it peer reviewed? what perspective are they writing from? Full-text from online sites Suggested Theological and Religious Internet Resources
Electronic full-text (paid by student)	You can search for and purchase articles yourself for $10-$50. However, there are not many theology and religious articles that you can purchase individually online. More details.

Reference Services