LIBRARIAN: Hello. What can I do for you?

STUDEN: I need some help. I’m having the most difficult time finding an article for my psychology course.

LIBRARIAN: OK. Can you tell me what the title of the article is?

STUDENT: Yeah. It’s “Impact of bilingual childhood education on emotional attachment style.” I’ve come across it before, but I am having trouble relocating it. I want to use it as a reference for a report I’m writing about language acquisition.

LIBRARIAN: And this is a subject in psychology?

STUDENT: Right. Because it deals with emotional attachment styles, and how different environmental factors can affect that.

LIBRARIAN: I see. Do you have the author’s name, by any chance? That would make the search a lot easier.

STUDENT: Unfortunately, no. I don’t remember. Um, I think it was a researcher from the UK though.

LIBRARIAN: All right. Let me just look on our database quickly...  I’m not seeing anything with that title. What journal was it published in?

STUDENT: Oh boy...for the life of me I can’t recall. I already searched in the American Journal of Psychology...being the most popular and all. And I checked in the British Journal of Social Psychology. Nothing there either.

LIBRARIAN: Well, the article database I’m searching with, Ebscohost, includes both of those journals and about 60 more psychology related ones. So my guess is that it could be located in a linguistics journal.

STUDENT: I hadn’t even thought of that.

LIBRARIAN: Nope...not under that subject either. I guess we’ll have to try a different search avenue. 

LIBRARIAN: Were there any other key words that stuck out to you when reading the article?

STUDENT: Um, maybe. The author did focus his analysis on first-generation immigrant families from, uh, Mexico living in the United States. So, I guess “first-generation” and “immigrant.”

LIBRARIAN: Ah, yes! Here it is. But wait...it’s not a published article, actually. It’s a dissertation. That explains why we both had trouble locating it.

STUDENT: What do you mean?

LIBRARIAN: Dissertations are not actually published. They are the property of the university at which the research was done. Parts of a dissertation may be published, but that doesn’t look like the case with this doctoral student.

STUDENT: Ah.

LIBRARIAN: The problem is that dissertations are not readily available like published articles. We’ll need to request a copy of the dissertation from the university. University of York, it seems. 

STUDENT: How does one go about that, exactly?

LIBRARIAN: Just fill out this form, and then I will send a request for a digital copy. If they don’t have one, it’ll likely arrive by post.

STUDENT: How long would that take?

LIBRARIAN: By post an interlibrary loan takes around two weeks. If it exists in digital format, you may have it before the end of the week.

STUDENT: I hate to be a bother, but is there any way to expedite the process? I only have a couple of weeks to finish my report.

LIBRARIAN: I’m afraid not. But tell you what...I can help you search for similar research if you’d like.

STUDENT: That’d be wonderful!

LIBRARIAN: Why don’t we set up an appointment for tomorrow?

STUDENT: Lovely.

LIBRARIAN: Does 2 o’clock work?

STUDENT: No, I have class from 1 to 3.

LIBRARIAN: Three-thirty, then?

STUDENT: Yes, yes. Is there anything I need to prepare?

LIBRARIAN: It will be a much more productive search if you bring an outline of your report, or at least a list of the premises of your research...oh, and also a compilation of key words related to your topic.

STUDENT: Sure.

LIBRARIAN: If anything changes, and you can’t make it, please email me right way.

STUDENT: I will, I promise. Thank you so much.

LIBRARIAN: Good then. Until tomorrow.

Answer Key:

1. psychology

2. language acquisition

3. B

4. D

5. 60

6. first-generation immigrant

7. dissertation

8. two weeks

9. key words

10. email