Proquest Database

Use and Overview

The Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global database is often overlooked during the scholarly research process because dissertations do not go through the same peer-review steps that a scholarly journal article process follows.This database is one of the most valuable and underused databases; and one that graduate students should consider exploring during their thesis or dissertation library research. 

They can see a finished and completed dissertation or master research product that can establish the expectations for their own master or doctoral journey. They can use dissertations and theses as exemplars for citation and document formatting in their discipline, and see examples of different types of dissertation models that range from the traditional one topic dissertation to a three journal article dissertation. They can get a good idea of what a good literature review that is close to their topic looks like. This is important because in the published scholarly articles they read, the literature review is often truncated and blended with the article introduction. 

Top 10 List

Here is my top 10 list, on how the Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global database can be utilized in graduate student research consultations and teaching:

  1. Use the advanced search option to locate dissertations from the University of Utah, or specific to their department, as well as, completed dissertations of their doctoral advisors and committee members
  2. Show students how to ‘mine’ the references in a dissertation, and how to search for more current literature that builds off of an older dissertation bibliography
  3. Point out to students how dissertations appear in Google Scholar and how by connecting Google Scholar to the Marriott Library they can access full text dissertations directly from the Proquest database
  4. Clarify the differences, as they do preliminary research, between dissertations and scholarly published articles and demonstrate how to use dissertations as a jumping off point to other sources
  5. Recommend for students to read the introduction chapter of a dissertation to gain a good overview and context of a research topic
  6. Utilize the literature review chapter to discuss how a literature review is designed and structured
  7. Discuss with students how writing a dissertation engages students in the scholarly research community and how they can build on the research of previous students and other researchers who came before them
  8. Search dissertations specifically to explore methodology examples or hypothesis testing ideas for their own research questions and methodology
  9. Focus students on the dissertation conclusions and limitations sections of a dissertation to uncover questions still unanswered or uncover recommendations for future research areas
  10. Demonstrate how to use the Appendices at the end of a dissertation to learn more about IRB processes, interview questions and protocols, as well as to discover survey instruments used in their own discipline