Searching Tips
Searching
You can search for articles and books in a variety of places including; Quick Search, the Library Catalog, Melvyl, and on the Databases Page.
Brainstorming
Try synonyms (words that mean the same) for your original search terms.
Think about your topic and combine additional search terms to help you find exactly what you are looking for.
Remember, 350 results are probably too many to look through; try to narrow it down. But 2 results are probably too few.
Give yourself enough information on the topic to write about it. Broaden or expand your search as needed.
Boolean Operators Can Help Broaden or Narrow Your Search
AND will narrow your search, producing results that include both words that you enter for example:
OR will broaden your search producing results that include either term. For Example:
Scholarly Journals or Peer-Reviewed Articles
Through the library's databases you can narrow your search down to these specific types of articles. Google can't really do that. Scholarly journals are different from magazine and newspaper articles because of the peer-review process. The process can very, the general idea is that:
- The author tends to be specialist in the field and the article has gone through the peer review process.
- A panel of the author's peers (also experts in the field) review the article, make comments/corrections and return it to the publisher.
- The publisher returns it to the author to make the necessary changes.
- Once this is complete, the article is considered suitable for publication. Only about 20% of the articles submitted to peer-reviewed journals are ever published.
Find Out Who Else Has Used the Article You Found
Authors of articles and books are often indexed in Web of Science. Searches can be done by author, cited author, cited work, and keywords. For a quick "how to", try the Introduction to Cited Reference Searching Tutorial.
Remember: Make sure you are using the right sources for your paper and be sure to use a variety of databases. You want to use the best articles possible for your research.